Something To Think On
by cliosmuse
Summary: M/I. Post-BDM. At a moment of crisis, Mal gives thought to the past three years as he tries to make sense of the present. An Inara's secret story. Many thanks to Bytemite and Aliasse for betaing throughout.
1. Prologue

**Prologue**

Funny thing was, he hadn't even been looking for a renter. Of course he'd said he'd been, later, but it wasn't the case. When Kaylee'd first walked through Serenity's hatch off of Persephone, the woman with the long-lashed doe-eyes and black locks (where most folk just had _hair_) almost floating ahead of her, it'd not been on his mind in the least. Fact of the matter was renters'd always struck him as more trouble than they were worth. Passengers were one thing. Even if they were trouble, it was trouble of a temporary kind. And if the trouble became too mighty, they could always be deposited before their destination. Plenty of other folk out there willing to give them a ride for coin, after all. No, renters were a different breed; they were permanent-like. Not long on board and they started thinking they were crew. Poking into things they got no business poking into. Botching jobs. And that's when some were liable to get hurt. No, renters weren't for the likes of Serenity. Only ones belonged on Serenity were her family.

But then there was little Kaylee, walking up Serenity's gangplank grinning like a cat just eaten a canary, nodding and gesturing at the vision of a woman whose lashes fell slowly to her cheeks as Kaylee yammered, words coming out a mile a minute. "Miss Serra, this here's Malcolm Reynolds, cap'n of Serenity. Cap'n, this here's Miss Inara Serra. She's lookin' to rent that shuttle."

He crossed his arms across his chest, cocked an eyebrow, and smirked at the girl. "And just which shuttle might that be, Miss Kaylee?"

From behind the stranger, Kaylee was making desperate little gestures: she pursed her lips and tugged on an earlobe, rocked back and forth a bit on her feet, cleared her throat. "You know, Cap'n — that shuttle. The one you were lookin' to rent." A beat. "You know. That _shuttle_."

He couldn't help but grin at the antics of his mechanic, but it did nothing to change the fact that he had no intention of renting a shuttle. He looked admiringly over the doe-eyed, long-locked, red-lipped woman, bedecked in her finery. "Miss... Serra, was it, if you'll excuse me? I'd like to have a word with Kaylee here."

Her lashes batted once in consent, and then her eyes were raking over Serenity's innards. Not in a way he took offense at: no, no, she seemed pleased by his girl. It left a slight smile on his lips as he watched her watching the ship. When he looked down at Kaylee, she was still grinning that cat-n-canary grin.

"I'n't she _pretty_, Cap'n?"

He rolled his eyes upward and shook his head. "Yes, she's _pretty_, Kaylee. But I don't rent out my shuttles, either of 'em, and particularly not on account of the renter bein' pretty. You know that as well as the next."

Kaylee pushed her lips out in a pout, her hands on her hips. "Aw, but _Cap'n_. Can't she stay? Just think about me! All alone on this great big ship without a soul to talk to about..." She nodded. "You know, _personal_ things and the like, and here she is, a real, flesh-and-blood, bona fide _Companion_. Think about all the stories she'll be able to tell me! And all the advice she'll have for me!"

"Kaylee, it's not as if she's a puppy that you can just bring in from the cold 'cause it be amusin' to you." He quirked an eyebrow. "And no, you can't have a puppy, neither." He shot a glance over toward the woman, who walked around the edges of Serenity's cargo hold, gazing up at her catwalks, something a tad wistful in her eye. He shook his head again. "'Sides, what's Zoe good for if not for your girl-talk?"

Kaylee stamped her foot. "Oh, Zoe don't know _the first thing_ 'bout bein' a girl, Cap'n. Please? Can't you leastways show her around?" She tilted her head and gave a sly smile. "Who knows, maybe you'll even like her."

His sigh was all full of drama, but he was smiling underneath it all. Wouldn't hurt none to show the woman around, he estimated. Not often one had the chance to enjoy the company of those that think they're better'n one, anyway. And showing her the shuttle didn't mean renting it to her. "A Companion, you say?"

The girl nodded enthusiastically. "I told her you had other folks interested. Made it sound s'if we were real anxious to let it out. Try to give a nice sales pitch, won't ya?"

And that was that. He'd shown her the shuttle. She'd insulted her size. He'd insulted her profession. She'd put out her fancy arguments about him needing respectability, which would've been more convincing if he'd wanted a tenant at all, and refused his price, which would've been more clever if he hadn't quoted her a figure twice what he reckoned she was worth. In the end, she conjured it right. He wanted her — on his ship. She — and her smart mouth, and her doe eyes, and whatever in the 'Verse she was running from — would give him something to think on. And sometimes a man needs something to think on.

She never asked him about renters past or future; and it would be some time before he figured precisely what she was doing running.

* * *

"Cap'n, why don't you reckon she never _told_ us?"

"That's somethin' I couldn't tell you, little Kaylee."


	2. Chapter One

**Chapter One**

Nope, he hadn't been looking for a renter — but there she was, and it seemed like she was there to stay. Kept to her shuttle mostly the first few weeks (came down for dinner when Kaylee occasioned to invite her, but mostly stayed to herself), and he made a point in the beginning of steering clear of places weren't his business — _things _weren't his business. And what she did most certainly wasn't his business.

Nighttime twenty days to the day she'd come on board. Boat had been docked on Bellerophon a mite too long for his taste. First time he'd stayed so long on a border planet in longer than he could count, and wouldn't have happened at all if it wasn't for her and her gorram respectability. Greased the introductions. Wasn't all she was greasing.

The goods they were dropping were on the up and up, but it didn't make him none the more comfortable there — and so he was in the galley, bent over the cooker, fixing something hot to ease tender nerves. He wouldn't've noticed her presence at all except for her little gasp come from the doorway. By the time he'd turned she was already on her way back out, black hair and the back of a flowy piece of silk all that he saw.

No fault of her own, he was sure, but the sight of her stirred up a little flash of anger in him. His momma'd taught him how to be polite once upon a time, but he didn't much remember those lessons now. "Too fancy to be seen with us mere mortals?"

She turned at that, her hand pulling the edges of the flowy silk piece together at her breast. She dropped her eyes. "Captain Reynolds. My apologies. I assumed everyone would be asleep by now."

He nodded once, quickly. Nonchalant-like. Had he been trying to conjure the source of his anger, his next words would've been a good clue; had he been trying to ingratiate himself to her, he would've bit his tongue. But the images roiling in his mind were just so _fierce_. "Shouldn't you be on your back somewhere?"

Her eyes widened, likely in shock, color rising to her cheeks (if he wasn't mistaken). Quick as the hurt was there it was gone, though, and she lowered her head and shook it a couple times, quick, like she was clearing it of whatever'd been in it, and coughed once, softly, delicate-like. "There was a... complication."

Something about the way she looked made him want to ask after her, make sure she wasn't _shòushāng_, but that was quicksand, best avoided. So he grinned. "That what they're calling it these days?"

Her eyes snapped up, something like anger in them, and he'd scored a hit in game he hadn't even known he was playing. She pulled her shoulders up, and her grip on that bit of silk went even tighter. "If that's all, Captain, I'll bid you _wǎnān_." She made a graceful turn, like a dancer, and took a step out the door.

He could blame the late hour or this gorram planet frying his nerves all he wanted later on, but the fact of the matter was that right then he just wanted her to feel comfortable enough on his boat to stay in her kitchen for a spell. What'd he said, about renters thinking they were crew? And now here he was, angry because she didn't. (Of course, might be he was angry because of that other thing, too.) "Miss Serra?" The Companion paused on her way out the door, her breath catching just so much, and so he kept on. "'Nara?" A moment of tense quiet, then. "Don't —" A beat. Don't what? _Don't listen to those things I said, it's just a way I have of keepin' folks away_? Or maybe, _Don't think I can't tell somethin's bothering you_? Or maybe just, _Don't go_? A breath. "Don't 'spect you to apologize for comin' down here, you know. You're welcome here just like the rest."

She turned her head back over her shoulder, those red, red lips showing a ghost of a smile. "I appreciate that, Captain Reynolds."

"And you can call me... well, Mal. Most do." He scrubbed dirty fingers through his hair, all askew, feeling some awkward. "Most bein', you know, Wash and such."

The smile broadened just slightly. "I'll consider it. Good night."

* * *

Next to him, Kaylee shifted a little. "What made you first start wonderin' 'bout it?"

He sighed. "Wasn't just one little thing."

* * *

But it was, in a way. Or, he could remember the point his wondering started. It was that next morning, and he could just about hear Zoe and Wash arguing on the bridge from his room. Just about. Truth be told, had to go a bit closer to make it out completely. He walked up toward the bridge, stood outside the hatch. He wasn't one to spy, normal days. But most days of late had felt none too normal.

"— just don't understand why she's here, is all."

Wasn't much of a secret his first mate didn't much like Inara Serra back in those early days. He reckoned he'd have had to've been blind not to notice. Effort she'd gone to to avoid meeting her eye, time and again, was something to behold.

Wash, making a joke, as was his way back in days he was breathing: "Don't understand why she's here? What's not to understand? She's hot."

Zoe near growled at that. "We've been here two days longer than we should've been. Two days. And it's because of her and her damned job. She's not crew. She's not nothin'. And she's putting us on the radar when we should be flyin' under it."

"Seems like I remember her _getting_ us this job, honey. And the pay was good." He paused a mite, likely to leer. "Maybe even good enough for us to afford to spend some time on-planet next stop... Nice dinner, nice room, nice sheets..."

Zoe was having none of it. "Well it certainly ain't worth our lives. And if the Captain's too worked up chasing some _mǔgǒu_ to see —"

"Is he your boss or your boyfriend, Zoe? I never can quite get that straight."

Her voice responding was like gunmetal. Reminded him why she would be his right hand till the day one or both of them died. "_He keeps me alive_. And that means he's gotta be thinking straight, not got his head wrapped around some fly-by-night passenger who's not and won't ever be crew."

He was tired. Nerves still fried. He was in no mood for it, nor to keep his presence secret any longer. "Something eatin' you, Zoe?"

She jerked around, stood up at attention like the soldier she was. Wash slouched down at his console, jaw clenched, staring at a gorram dino. Zoe's eyes went down then back up, catching his straight on, bold, and holding them. She wasn't one to flinch from a fight. "No, sir. Just wondering when we're gonna be leaving this damned rock, if you'll excuse my language."

He held her eye for a second. "As a matter of fact, we'll be leavin' right now. Wash, map out a course to Persephone. This job'll pay for a mighty full supply run." He turned on his heel, but then, over his shoulder: "Oh, and Zoe?"

She cleared her throat. "Yes, sir."

"I think you're the one needs to straighten out your head. I make a decision, you can damned well expect it's for the good of my crew. You got a problem with it, you come see me. An' if I ever hear you slanderin' me behind my back again —" He turned his head back toward her, not quite looking at her. "_Ever_ — you'll still be my crew. But maybe that's it."

* * *

He started when he heard her voice. Kaylee'd long since come and gone, but he hadn't heard the little one come in. "That's an angry memory," was what she said.

"Ain't no business of yours to be seein' it."

"More sad than angry. You never knew."

* * *

It was the wondering seemed sad, now. But at that moment he'd been nothing but mad. He'd left without a word more spoken to his oldest friend. Didn't think much, just headed for _that_ shuttle. First time he'd been there since she'd been aboard. First time he let himself in without her saying. Wouldn't be the last.

The noise of the hatch opening was loud; almost startled him enough to make him ask himself why he was there, and who exactly it was he was so mad with. Almost.

Inside the shuttle, and there was a mighty lot of moving about his eye just caught the edge of. His tenant, crouched in front of a bowl of flowery-smelling water. Sponge dropped in with a loud plop as her head spun toward the hatch, those dark curls flying. An angry bruise on a milky shoulder uncovered by her shifting; red slip of silk pulled over it fast as you could blink. And then she was up and stalking toward him, and her eyes were all fire.

"Captain Reynolds, how _dare_ you come into my —"

He wasn't listening: walked up to her till they stood face to face, inches from the other, glaring and breathing hard, and cut her off. "You and I —" (Those dainty, kissable lips still parted just slightly as he talked over her.) "— need to get some things sorted. I want so it's absolutely clear. Your jobs work on our schedule or they don't get done."

Her mouth snapped shut and she stood up straighter, up on her toes. Didn't make much difference. Her height wasn't her finest asset. "_My _jobs? My _jobs_? You didn't seem to have a problem with '_my jobs_' yesterday, when you were counting the take from _your_ job. And may I remind you who _got _you your —"

Shook his head. "That there's another thing. No more dolin' out your central planet work for us like we're some kinda charity case."

She smirked. "I don't know that pride is a sin you can afford to wallow in, Captain."

Something like a direct blow, and it smarted. "Pride ain't got nothin' to do with it. This here ship's got no business in the Core for good reason. We get recognized in these parts as a salvage ship, may be we get ignored, or may be we get turned in for bounty. We dance between the Rim and the Border, and we don't stay nowhere too long. You be of a mind to do your business in the Core, you best —" Voice broke a bit, there. "You best find yourself another ship."

She shook her head, eyes flaming. "Why you ungrateful, pigheaded —"

She'd trailed off. He took it as something of a challenge. Held his arms wide in invitation. "What? What am I? Cat got your tongue, or don't you know any dirty words?"

She balled her hands on her waist. "_Shǎguā_!"

_Idiot_. It made him laugh, but it wasn't with much humor. "Called plenty worse daily, darlin'. By none so attractive as yourself, of course."

Her eyes, locked on his, and his the same — all silence except for their breath, coming fast. They looked a touch too long, longer than was proper, he expected. And then her cheeks were a mite pink, and she went to shut it down, her voice quiet. "I think you should leave my shuttle now, Captain."

He closed his eyes; took a deep breath. Could see this was going nowhere good. _Quicksand_. Hadn't he thought that before, when he'd wanted to ask her if she weren't hurt? Fact he had the nerve to say it, he conjured later, was a feat of bravery. Just possible because he'd only just met her, after all; but it cost him dearly anyhow. "Meant what I just said. Maybe —" Choked a bit. A beat. Two. "Maybe it's you who should leave. I'll pay back what you're owed. All of it, if you're a mind — you haven't been here a month yet, after all. But it seems clear to my lights you don't belong with the likes of us. Worlds we visit, folk can't afford a whore of your class. Nope, folk who can afford the likes of you are proper folk, like those on this rock, those that appreciate your artistry. Those that hit."

Her eyes widened, blazing. "Get out."

"Best you do it shortly. Keep it quick an' clean."

"Maybe I will." Those angry eyes held his till he turned around and walked back out.

Walked back to his bunk (Jayne's mutterings about chasing pretty ladies away following him) and laid down on his back, arms crossed behind his head. Why'd he do it? He didn't rightly know. Zoe's words had made him sore, it was true. But it wasn't because she was wrong. Wasn't any slander to it. He reckoned she knew that. Zoe knew him as well as he knew himself.

No, truth was he was some scared that she was right, and, more than anything, Zoe's words gave him good excuse to do what Jayne's muttering held him to have done: chase the renter away. He didn't take much to the idea of attachment — hadn't since the war (or maybe even before, truth told). When folk depended on you, it was best not to be overly attached to any one soul. Being overly attached to a soul, even a soul that could never be attached back, made a man put too much stock in his own life.

Though he reckoned even gone she'd give him something to think on. For a while.

Some time later — he couldn't say just how much — there was a soft tapping at the sliding hatch of his room. Wasn't anyone else who'd've done it so delicate-like. He swung his legs over the side of his bed and scrubbed his hands through his hair. "C'mon down. Not a soul to stop you." And then, louder than he figured it'd ever been before, the sound of metal scraping against metal and he could just see red slippered feet and then red silk as she climbed down his ladder. He quirked an eyebrow when he got a full view of her. "Well, now. You look downright penitent."

She crossed her arms across her chest and huffed (if Companions huffed, that is). "_Penitent_? I most certainly am not. It's awfully hard to be penitent when you've done nothing wrong." She paused and looked away, any direction but his; bit her lip, like she was thinking on something, thinking on what to say. "But nonetheless, Captain Reynolds —" Looked back at him. "Mal. I — I'd like to stay."

She took a step into the room. He watched her, dumb-like, before realizing his mouth was hanging open, and he closed it quick. She wasn't watching him, though — was just looking around his room some more in that same dazzled way she first took in his boat. "Would you, now?"

Still not looking at him: "Yes. For now. There was a reason I chose Serenity, you know."

"That so?"

"I chose it because of what you do and where you go. It's precisely those things that made Serenity an attractive option for me a month ago. I can assure you, I have no more need to be in the Core than you do, aside from a single trip a year to Ariel."

"A year?"

She glanced at him. "If I stay that long, that is." A pause. "There are plenty of worlds that meet both of our needs, Mal. We needn't make a return visit to Bellerophon if you find it disagreeable. My client —"

He rubbed his hand over his face. "You've got no cause to tell me about your client, and I've got no need to hear it."

She nodded. "Very well."

"Though, were you to _ask_ me, I'd say you could stand to be a _mite_ pickier." Her jaw tightened. Best to dance back from that particular sore spot. He was quiet for a time afore speaking. Finally, he slapped his hands against his knees and stood up to face her. "Well, then, I reckon I'm gonna have to get used to you, Inara Serra."

She watched him, and her lips quirked up just a hair. "And I to you, Malcolm Reynolds."

He stood there watching the ladder led out of his bunk for some time after those little feet were out of sight. And that's when he started wondering. It just didn't make no sense, her being there. Didn't make no sense at all.

Hadn't been looking for a renter, but here she was, stuck on his brain like glue. Cursed himself from time to time for that little spot of weakness that made him agree to have her in the first place, and again for that other weakness, the one that kept him from making her leave. Because even if it's the case that sometimes a man needs something to think on, it's best that he can think on other things sometimes too.

* * *

The girl reached out, then, to touch a deathly pale cheek, and before he knew it — not knowing quite why — he'd thrown her to the ground, away from that pale white skin, and then she was curled in a ball screaming and screaming.

"What have you done to her?" Her brother, white shirt-sleeves rolled up to his elbows, was there in a second, and Mal was backing away from it all, away from the screaming little girl, away from her angry brother, away from the woman on the table, who didn't move.

Her screams died into sobs, and he thought he heard her whisper, over and over: "I can help her."

He shook his head as he turned to walk back to his bunk. "Can't nobody help her now."

* * *

_Translations_  
shòushāng: 'hurt'  
wǎnān: 'goodnight'  
mǔgǒu: 'bitch'  
shǎguā: 'idiot', literally 'stupid melon'


	3. Chapter Two

**Chapter Two**

_Get used to you_. That there was something of a joke, since he reckoned he'd never quite get used to her. Partly because it was so damned hard to tell with her how much was truthsome and how much was wiles. He conjured the truthsome moments were few and far between.

She was a Companion, well-trained one at that. So damned good at what she did that it was frightful easy to _forget_, forget that every gesture — the little smiles and the wide eyes and the worried way she sometimes pursed her lips — was calculated to _win _something, to _fool_ someone. A man could lose himself. He reckoned many had. Hell, he reckoned _he_ was the fool more often than he cared to know. Oft-times found himself thinking on times they were together, wondering which was truthsome and which was wiles. Found himself trying to make her mad, just to see that little flash in her eyes he knew she couldn't quite tame.

Funny how he didn't realize till it was passed just how _zhēn_ that moment in his bunk was, that moment when she'd come to him and asked to stay. Because, thinking back, it seemed plain to him that that wasn't about wiles. No. Wiles were the reverse psychology she came armed with when she wanted him to think it was his gorram idea to go to this rock or that. Wiles were the smiles she gave him once they were there when she asked if they might could linger a day longer than need be. But wiles wasn't that desperate little note in her voice when she'd asked him not to turn her away.

Because _wiles_ — wiles, he conjured, were a thing she used to get what she wanted. Staying on Serenity'd been something she'd needed. Wished he knew why.

* * *

A hand on his shoulder: the doctor's. "Mal..." It was all he could do not to take a good swing at him, and his sister too, still balled up and crying behind him. He didn't, in some measure because he thought she'd've been disappointed in him.

Without looking back, he shrugged the hand off and walked away.

* * *

Another day, another job, and they were on Beaumonde.

She'd been showing that pretty face at dinner more and more. He had to admire her for it. Couldn't've been easy. It was always more than a mite awkward, after all, between Zoe's glaring and Jayne's leering. Likely she came because Kaylee'd been asking her to, he figured. Dinnertime was dreary for his little mechanic, aside from Wash's jokes, which always got her laughing. So she'd asked _the Companion_ (he had a time thinking of her by her given name, just couldn't manage it; in his head she was just _her_), and he reckoned there wasn't a soul in the 'Verse could say no to Kaylee.

He knew she was there that night soon as he saw Kaylee's face go all dreamy, and her voice to match. "Hey, 'Nara."

He stole a glance as she floated in, enough to see her smile like some saint come down from high to bless them, dancing a pretty hand across Kaylee's hair as she passed. Her voice when she spoke was all cool and gentle. "Hello, _mei mei_." Lifted up her chin, to show she was talking to the rest: "Good evening."

The smile Wash dished on her could've cracked his face. Man seemed on a mission to ease the tension been building on the boat since the Companion came on board. Zoe still wasn't patched up with neither him or Wash, and she still wasn't like to give Inara Serra the time of day. He reckoned all that together meant Wash to be passing most nights on the floor.

"Inara!" Pilot was still grinning away. "We're so glad you could dine with us this evening. Can I interest you in the veal? Or the lamb? A nice Cotes du Rhone to start? The finish of this one bears distinctive overtones of black cherry and almond."

Inara's answer was a smile went straight to her eyes — till Zoe spoke. Grin didn't quite fall, but went out of her eyes. "Best not to joke on such things with the likes of that one," Zoe muttered. "She'll expect you to have it to offer."

Her long lashes fell to her cheeks once, and then she'd regained herself all but completely and fixed Wash with a beatific smile. Yes, indeed, a man could lose himself. "I'd love to stay, but I'm afraid I've got an appointment to keep. I just wanted to stop in and say hello."

He held his curiosity in tight. Kept his eyes down on his plate and stabbed a piece of baked protein as he talked at her. "Hand-off's tomorrow, then we're off Beaumonde quick as we can. When can we expect you? Best we could meet before we're on the run."

He reckoned if he looked up she'd be watching him. If he did it quick enough, maybe he'd catch a glimpse of what she saw when she looked at him._No_. Trained his eyes on his plate as he waited for her answer.

"I should be docked back here by mid-morning. My engagement is just for this evening."

A hard snort of a laugh came from right beside him. Jayne, the muscle on his crew. "Heh. Just the ruttin', eh?"

His eyes snapped over to look at the man, sitting there grinning like a jackal. Words came out afore he could stop them. "You can shut your gorram trap, Jayne, or I'll shut it for you. You haven't been here long enough for it to give me any grief."

But like all those other times to come, she didn't need his protecting. (And even if she did, he conjured he'd proved time and again he couldn't do anything for her.) Nope, she didn't need no help at all. She just smiled, all radiant, like she never heard Jayne at all; cupped Kaylee's cheek, gentle-like; leaned down and kissed her soft just by her mouth. "Goodnight, _mei mei_," she said, and then she stood up all stately as a queen and walked around the other side of the table. When she got to Jayne, she put a hand on his shoulder and leaned in close to his ear, so her hair just barely brushed against Mal's arm on the table. What she said he couldn't hear, but his gunman's grin dropped off his face quick enough. His eyes got wide, and his mouth fell open. She leaned back, and he just made out her asking: "Do you understand?" Jayne nodded once. Then again. And she smiled that saint smile one last time at them all, and turned, and walked tall out the door.

The big man shook his head. "Well I'll be damned. That there's some woman."

* * *

"Scared, she's so scared. Don't leave me. Never leave me."

"I won't, River. I'm here. Don't worry. He's gone now."

* * *

Leave? Was her mostly that left, off to do her cavorting for one night or ten. (Well, could be it was never _that_ long.)

He'd be on the bridge and see a wave coming in; Wash'd direct it her way, and he'd know, sure as day, that this was the fella that was cause for whatever request she'd put to him in days past.

Not that he put a bit of care into the fact. These two months she'd paid him on the nose, early even, and that was the only care a landlord had for his tenant. Coin was real and hard (where she wasn't either), and it spoke loud.

Hand-off went down right as could be. No hitches, and that was a thing one never stopped being grateful for. And so he was taking his ease in the mess over a hot drink, waiting for her, when the comm sounded.

"Mal?" Wash.

"M'here."

The comm crackled. "Yeah, well, you might want to get _here_. You're not going to like this — we've got an incoming transmission from Sihnon."

He was up and out the door before he heard another word. Up to the bridge quick as a blink, and there was Wash, puzzling over the screens on his console.

"Alliance?"

Wash turned his head back over his shoulder. "Not unless the Alliance has started selecting its messengers from the local girls' school —"

He'd already picked up the wave. Face that blinked onto the screen was a young girl's, and the way she looked, the way she held herself, seemed mighty familiar. "Captain Malcolm Reynolds here. What might I be able to do for you today?"

She smiled a blissful little smile. "Captain Reynolds, please hold for the Priestess."

He looked over at Wash. "Priestess of what?"

"Of House Madrassa, Captain Reynolds." Back to the screen, and there in front of him was a regal-looking woman about fifty, bedecked in all manner of finery. "I won't waste your time with pleasantries. I'm searching for one of Madrassa's Companions. I have reason to believe she might be lodging on your vessel."

He tightened his jaw. "You got reason to believe, do you? Ain't it your business to know such things?"

She was quiet for a bit, just watching him; her eyes were burrowing little holes in his skin. He crossed his arms in front of him, like to ward her off. And then: "Now I do."

He straightened up. "Now wait just one damn minute, I didn't tell you anything —"

"You told me enough, Captain Reynolds. May I speak with her?"

He frowned. "She isn't here."

"Um, Mal?"

He glanced sidelong at the pilot, who seemed to be muttering something into his headpiece. "Not now, Wash."

"But Mal —"

"Wash, what part of 'not now' I got to explain to you?"

"It's just that Inara's shuttle just docked."

He sighed and raked a dusty hand through messy hair. Gave a glance back at the screen. And then, his voice revealing a touch more worry than he likely meant it to: "She isn't in trouble, is she?"

The woman smiled, but some part of it was sad. "How well do you know Inara, Captain?"

Beside him, he heard Wash speaking into the headset. "Okay, I'll patch it through to your shuttle."

The face on the screen blinked out into nothing.

"Every body counted, then. Get us off this rock, Wash."

* * *

Was just about at his bunk when all of a sudden it seemed there was only one place in the 'Verse he wanted to be.

He turned on his heel and made his way to her shuttle.

Privacy wasn't much matter now, after all.

* * *

That day, he'd gone to her shuttle, too. He had a mind to lay down some words on truthsomeness. That time, though, she was there, her hatch open wide. He got close enough so as to see little Kaylee, sitting right in the middle of the shuttle on that fine red Persian rug she kept. They were sitting cross-legged across from one another, knees touching, playing with a whole mess of string.

"Do it again, so's I can see." The Companion smiled and obliged and made some quick work of the string, and what she held up at the end sure didn't look like a mess anymore. It was something intricate, something delicate, a tangle of crisscrossing threads, catching the light just so. "What'd you say you call this, again?"

"When I was a little girl, we called it a Jacob's Ladder, a stairway to heaven. It's a very ancient game, from Earth-That-Was. Start with nothing, and make something beautiful."

"So pretty. You would know somethin' like this. Everything 'bout you is pretty. All the games my pa taught me ended in me covered in a load of grease."

"You shine through the smudges, _mei mei_."

They were quiet for bit of time, and at the doorway he was barely breathing listening to them talk. Didn't know quite why. Kaylee was looping the string round her thumbs in all sorts of fashions, and the one in the green dress was just reaching over to steer her hands when the mechanic spoke up, hesitant-sounding. "Did he ask you to stay with him?"

Her answer was low and soft and sad. "Yes, he did."

"Well, weren't he _shuai_?"

"Yes, I suppose he was."

"And weren't he nice?"

"He was very polite."

"Well, why didn't you?"

There was a long moment of quiet before she spoke. "I think —" A beat. "I think any sort of commitment would be wrong for me right now for a great many reasons, Kaylee."

The girl scrunched up her face. "But why wouldn't you want that? I mean, don't everybody just want to be close to someone? More'n just a warm body, I mean — a warm soul too?" Some things Kaylee just wasn't ever going to understand. Fixing came as natural to her as breathing. And, well, the thought there might be something _broken_ in a body he might not want to fix... Nope, Kaylee couldn't understand that none too well. He could, though. He understood plenty.

'Nara just sighed, almost like she could hear him thinking. "You make it sound so simple." She blinked a few times, rapid, like to get out something caught in her eye, all the time watching her hands work through Kaylee's. After a minute, she smiled. "Look, you've done it, _mei mei_. It's beautiful."

Kaylee looked down, face splitting into a prize grin. "Oh, gee! Shiny!"

Not daring to watch any more, he came in, then, loud, demanding attention. "Won't dish the dirt with the rest of her girls. That's why the lady's a tramp."

Her head shot around to look at him, and she pushed herself to her feet with about as much grace as he figured he'd ever seen. Fixed him with a look didn't hold a trifle the affection she laid on Kaylee and shook her head. "Unbelievable. Absolutely unbelievable."

He tried to grin. "What, you impressed with my keen knowledge of Earth-That-Was music? Needn't be. It's my momma's doin'. She knew all them jazzy tunes, made the ranch hands on Shadow listen to 'em every Sunday dinner." She rolled her eyes and turned away from him, quick — walked over to one of her low little tables and lit the end of one of them fragrance sticks she seemed so fond of with a fancy lighter. He cleared his throat. "Kaylee, now you've mastered your little finger game there, why don't you leave us be."

The girl raised her eyebrows and grinned; pushed herself to her feet, making extra careful to take every last bit of string with her on her way out. "Bye, 'Nara." Paused, too long for to be accidental, and drawled out: "Cap'n."

When the girl was gone, she walked over to face him. "How long were you outside my shuttle, Captain?"

His eyes dropped down to his boots. "Didn't want to interrupt. Been a long while since Kaylee's had someone to feel close to. Don't got no mind to cheat her of her moments."

When he looked back up, her eyes were on his, like she was trying to read something out of him. Like Madrassa's Priestess'd done over the wave. Then she took a deep breath. "I trust your heist was successful?"

He shrugged. "Wasn't a heist. Just the hand-off."

She turned from him, made like she was tidying. Seemed to him an excuse to fidget. "Well, I trust _that_ was successful?"

He didn't right know how to bring it up. Shuffled his feet a bit before starting. "I've a mind to talk to you about that wave you took this afternoon —"

She looked over at him, sharp. "It was a personal communication. You've no reason to know the content of my private affairs."

He bristled. "May be that's true of most of them, but I damn well got a right to know if you're gonna be bringing trouble to my boat. Sounded to me like the lady didn't know where you've been keepin' yourself. And that got me to wonderin' just why that might be."

She sat down on her sofa, posture just so, and crossed her wrists across her knees, proper-like. "She didn't know because she had no reason to know. I conduct my business arrangements through the Guild now, not through a single House. House Madrassa has no cause to keep track of me."

"You expect me to believe you just left and didn't tell a soul where you were headed?"

"It was a personal decision. Again, no concern of yours."

"Seems like they know now."

She nodded once, sharp, and pursed her lips into something like a smile. "It's probably as it should be. It was naive of me to think it wise to cut off ties with Madrassa. But you needn't worry. The Alliance has no sway with the Guild. Companions follow their own code. Their knowing won't affect you."

Frowning to himself, he looked down and rocked back on his feet. Muttering: "Wasn't me so much I was worryin' on."

Her eyes dropped down to her hands just for a second, but it was that there that convinced him, when he later thought back on it, that this was one of those times lacked truthsomeness. What she said was: "I assure you, Captain Reynolds: I'm perfectly fine."

* * *

When he got to her shuttle, he let himself in. Like he'd said to her that very first time she'd showed up at his bunk, wasn't nobody there to stop him.

It was the smell of it done him in. Something about smells bringing back memories. Doc would probably give him a lot of brain science to explain it, but it didn't matter none. It was there. He was flooded by it.

The room was all red and ornate, her little trinkets lined up neat as could be. He wanted to go through it all, catalog every little trace of her. He wanted to destroy it all, get rid of every last reminder. He wanted to sleep.

So he walked over to that red, red couch, lay down on it, and closed his eyes.

* * *

Sometimes he watched her.

Sometimes he turned around, and there she was, watching him right back.

* * *

_Translations_  
zhēn: 'precious', 'valuable', or 'rare'  
mei mei: 'little sister'  
shuai: 'handsome'


	4. Chapter Three

**Chapter Three**

Plenty of times in his life he'd _wanted_ something, _someone_, but it wasn't never like this. No — most times, wanting a person is a thing physical, a heat and a hardness in the loins. _This_ wanting, it was somewhere else entirely. It fixed him in the chest, in the gut, a churning heaviness that didn't show no signs of lifting.

And it wasn't just wanting for her body, neither. He reckoned he probably did want that, but not in any desperate way. If that'd been it, it'd've been easy enough to tame. He wasn't sly (contrary to Nandi's asking, her last night in this world), but he conjured, if he was, desire still wouldn't have been a thing that plagued him as it did some men — like Jayne, the way his eyes raked over Zoe, Kaylee, even River when they were turned away. No, he'd built up a fine ability over the years to file away those thoughts (though sometimes they came to him in dreams).

This wanting was for something else. She gave up her body to men for coin, but she was mighty restrained with her soul. He didn't even know her — not in any proper and true sense, anyhow — but it was _that_ he wanted.

It was a wanting hot and cold, fire and ice, but both ways it threatened to finish him, to eat him up till there was nothing left. He wanted to save her same time he wanted to ruin her, not far off the way he felt right now, in her empty shuttle, about all those gorram trinkets. Count up every single last one of them, put down in some permanent record; set fire to them all, forget they ever once crossed his vision. Never to've met her; alway to've known her. He wanted both, together, at once.

And he couldn't even explain it proper. It didn't make no sense. She was plenty comely, course — _pretty_'d been Kaylee's choice term — but it wasn't that. It was the mystery of her, he figured. The things underneath the Companion outside. The things about her didn't quite add up. The sad look she had in her eyes sometimes when she thought nobody'd notice. And, other times, them little smiles she tried her damnedest to hide.

He conjured that the thing he was liable to regret the most when it was all said and done (if any man in this world could determine such a thing as that) was that he didn't see more of those smiles. He should've pocketed them, every last one. Not the Companion smile, that serene lift to her lips meant to pacify. And not the wily smile she laid on him when there was something she wanted. No, smile he meant was that one of the accidental variety, one she put on when, by some miracle, he'd gone and said something she took to be funny. Always seemed to surprise her: her eyes would go wide, and the littlest laugh would burst out against her will, and there'd be that smile (she'd lower her head, trying to hide it, maybe draw a hand up to her mouth). Fine line, he found, between funny and bothersome, but sometimes he hit the right side of it.

One such time, he sat on the sofa in the galley, looking over his weapon night before a run. (Piles of string strewn all around, left from Kaylee's starts at the finger-arts she'd learned so recent.)

"That's an awfully big gun you have there, Captain."

He swung his head to the side and fixed her with a sly grin. She was dressed casual — nice skirt, nice top, but nothing too ornate — and her hair was down around her face. It fit her mood. "Why, Miss Inara, you aren't trying to seduce me, are you? 'Cause I gotta warn you, I got my morals."

And there was that grin, and the little laugh that bubbled up behind it, like try as she might she just couldn't quite hold it in. She covered the edges of it behind dainty fingertips, but it was still there. She took a seat beside him on the couch (plenty distance between, of course). "Trust me, Mal, if I were trying to seduce you, you wouldn't ask if I were trying to seduce you."

He just barely held back a smile of his own, but he reckoned it showed in his eyes. Moments like this, when they both happened to be feeling free and easy at the same time, were precious rare. Most times, seemed like, one or the other was brooding. "Oh, really, now. And just how might somethin' like that go? You trying to seduce me, I mean." A beat. "Strictly for purposes of my research into Companion-folk and their lifeways, of course."

Her shoulders shook a little, and there was that look of surprised joy, and he was beaming inside that he could make her feel so carefree. "Our _lifeways_, hmm?" Shook her head. "Well, if it's for your research, how could I refuse?" And then, in her best teacherly voice, like she was about to explain about the facts of life: "You see, a client —"

"Me, you mean. Strictly research, but I think I might take to understandin' you a bit better if I could —" He mock-shrugged and made a vague gesture with his hand. "You know, really put myself into the situation."

She cleared her throat, that smile still threatening to break loose. "If I were trying to seduce _you_," (emphasizing the word) "Mal, you would never know you were being seduced. Companions are taught that their clients should always feel themselves to be in complete control of the situation."

He fixed her with a puzzled look, exaggerated for effect. "And so — mind you, I'm takin' notes here, so be specific — how might a woman of your considerable talent accomplish somethin' like that?"

She turned her eyes skyward for a second, like she were thinking on what to say, lips still quirked in that trying-not-to-laugh smile. "Well, I would put myself on display, but subtly. The attraction you would feel should seem like the most natural thing in the world."

Nodded his head. "Oh, I think it's safe to assume it would come natural."

Her brown eyes were sparkling. "And once I felt certain you were attracted to me, I would wait for your advance."

"I think there's a flaw in this plan of yours. How abouts I were the nervous type?"

Shook her head at that. "Oh, but you wouldn't be nervous. In fact, I should seem slightly bashful myself, as if it were I who were nervous, and you the one making me." And then her smile was dropping a bit, her voice getting a little softer, a little lower. He thought he might have caught her hand moving just slightly toward him along the seat of the couch. (Could be though he was imagining it.) Lashes fell to her cheeks once, slow. "So, you see, you would never feel as though an advance would be unwelcome."

His careless smile had long fallen away. He swallowed. "Sounds as though that'd make a man feel right special. Like he was someone you cared about."

Her eyes, on his. "A Companion's goal is to make every client feel as though he's special to her."

His eyelids felt heavy. "Then how would a body know if he were special to you, true? Would it be different?"

Silence. Her lips were parted just so much; bottom one quivered just slightly. Her eyelids were half-lidded, her chest rising and falling with the sound of her breath. Expression on her face was one of uncertainty, confusion, and maybe — just maybe — a bit of something else. He reckoned he looked just about the same. Just a whisper: "I don't know."

Longer pause than there should've been, and his answering question was strangled. "Don't know?" A beat. Another. "I suppose..." His voice rough, words coming slow: "I suppose he'd known by what you said when he asked you to stay."

Tongue came out, wet her lips, and then she drew her hands back into her lap, quick, and looked down at them. In a whisper he could just barely hear: "Now you know all my secrets." Smiled a bit nervous, like, and went to stand. "I — I should go. Let you finish preparing for tomorrow. I'll —" She smoothed down her skirts. "I'll look forward to hearing all about it."

He wasn't looking at her, except sidelong glances. From the time she stood, he'd had his eyes trained on his hands in his lap. As she turned to leave, though, he glanced some at her. Swallowed. Her name came out before he could stop it, just a gasp: "'Nara —"

She spun around toward him, answered too quick. "Yes?"

Another bit of quiet before he looked back down. "Goodnight."

A quick nod, and she rushed out, pushing past little Miss Kaylee in the door, whose mouth was wide in wonderment. Didn't ask her how much she saw. Didn't reckon he much wanted to know.

* * *

"Cap?" He'd woken some time before on her red sofa. Best sleep he'd had since it'd all started. Dreams plagued him weren't quite so fierce here, seemed like. Now, sitting up on that couch, elbows on his knees, head hung low, he listened to Kaylee's voice through the closed hatch. "Cap'n?"

He didn't respond.

* * *

Those moments — those when she laughed — they happened rare. Oftener than they laughed they fought, fought bitter. Next couple weeks she was quiet, distracted. Times he chanced to see her were rare. She didn't eat with his crew; couple of jobs she took kept her away days at a time. Moments he tried speaking to her, she jolted a bit, like he was interrupting a worried thought; often as not snapped at him for his trouble.

So when she came to him — him sitting on that same damnable galley sofa — and told him she had to see some doctors, was required to by the Guild, and asked could they go to Ariel, Ariel, at the gorram center of the 'Verse, he wasn't inclined to be none too pleased.

He stood up and took a few steps toward her, till he was well in her space. Her quick step back just backed her into the table.

"Well. I guess maybe _mài dòufu_ ain't so different from other work, after all. Got to tune up your instruments every some-odd miles. Wouldn't want gummed-up engine oil keepin' your client from havin' a pleasant time between your legs."

Tried her best to hide her hurt, but the way she reached her hands back and braced them against the table, looking for support, gave her away. Her voice stayed steady and true though: "You give a lot of thought to places you'll never go, Captain."

He smirked. "Best I don't. Wouldn't like to think what I might catch."

Didn't see the slap coming, but sure as hell felt it — it threw his head clear over his shoulder. Shaking her head, her face looking about ready to break: "_Nāozhǒng_." A beat. "_Nǐ bú shì rén_." And then it wasn't just his face stinging as she was pushing him away from her, trying to get out from between him and the table, near tripping in her haste to get out the door.

Kaylee was there that time, too, looking for all the world like she wanted to cry. Walked past her and out of the room without a word.

* * *

"Cap?"

She opened the hatch herself, then. Saw him just sitting, he reckoned, and came over to sit beside him.

With a kiss on his cheek, she whispered soft: "I love my captain."

They sat like that for a long while.

* * *

He went straight to the bridge, knowing he'd find his pilot there. Interrupted the man playing with his dinosaurs but wasn't in the mood to make a joke. Told him they were going to Ariel, or at least close enough so her shuttle could make the rest of the trip.

And then he was standing outside the shuttle, one hand braced against the wall, forehead leaned down into it, other hand perched on his hip, steeling himself to knock. His cheek still smarted where she'd hit him.

Steeled himself to knock, but didn't have to. She opened the hatch while he was still just standing there. He started and stood up straight. "I was — uh —" A beat. "Hi."

She nodded, arms crossed tight over her breasts, hugging herself, like. "Hello."

Gestured with his head toward the front of the boat. "Just — just wanted to let you know Wash is set to take us on to Ariel whenever about would be good and convenient for you."

Her chin dropped toward her chest, eyes shifting downward. "Thank you. I'll call ahead and arrange my visit."

He pushed his hands deep into his pockets and rocked back and forth on his feet. Wanted to do something to prove to her she was wrong ("_coward_," she'd said), that there was something to him, _in_ him ("_you're not human_"). Pulled one hand back out and pushed it through his hair. "Listen. I told Wash we could just get close in, but I don't know a soul who likes spending a day with doctors and the like. If you'd like some company for the waitin' —"

"No!" He could tell the minute she said it she wished she could take it back. Seemed like she was surprised at herself, backpedaled none too easy: "I mean — it's a very kind offer, very generous. I'd love — what I mean is I'd appreciate — but it's official Guild business, and I'm — I'm required to go alone."

He didn't believe it for one fat second but didn't much blame her for not craving his rotten company. She was right. He was a weak person, less than a person. He felt his jaw clench a bit as he nodded slowly; didn't look up at her, for not wanting to see the worry and regret that so often tinged her expressions. "Well, we can be near 'nough to drop you by day after tomorrow. When you know what you need, you let Wash know."

Turned away from her, then, still without looking at her, and walked back to the bridge.

* * *

A long time of quiet, and they sat there peaceably. He envied the hours he conjured she'd spent in this room, how familiar it must've seemed to her. Finally, she shifted a touch beside him. "Why'd you two fight so much, Cap'n?" A beat. "I mean, if you don't mind my askin', an' all... and not meanin' to imply your fightin' was anything above, you know, the normal 'mount of fightin' a person does..."

He swung his chin around toward her — first movement he'd made since she came in — but he was looking past her. He thought for a good long moment. "I imagine it was because fighting..." He took a breath. "Fighting reminds a soul he's alive. Maybe more than even loving does."

* * *

She was gone two days. Didn't announce her return to him, and he took his time running into her. First he saw of her when she got back was on the catwalks over the cargo hold morning after her return. Air felt heavy. Tried his best to seem nonchalant. "Wash said you were back."

She gave a kind of half-smile, murmured her assent. "Hmm. And I imagine we're well on our way to our next port of call by now."

A bit of quiet, none too comfortable, both of them shifting around a touch too much. "So you all cleared for business, then?"

She took a deep breath. "You could say that."

He nodded his head, slow, and pushed a hand through his hair. "Must've been some real thorough tests."

That half-smile again, around pursed lips. "No stone left unturned."

He took a breath, reaching for small talk. "Uh — you get to anything else while you were there?"

Her eyes widened, just for a second, and she answered a hair too fast. "No — why?"

He shrugged, shook his head. "Uh — no reason — just figured they've got things there might be to the liking of folks like — might be to your liking." A beat. "Opera... and such."

She dropped her eyes. "Oh."

He looked at her for a spell, in the heavy-feeling air, waiting for her to say something else, something real, something truthsome. She didn't.

Next year that passed he made no fuss on it. At her mention of Ariel, he just nodded, and there they were. Didn't pay no heed to Wash's sly joking or Kaylee's friendly concern. And then the young doctor's plan had distracted him enough so as he near-about forgot about it all. Asked her, subtle, how her thing'd been when she got back. Her answer said she still wasn't keen on talking about what it was all about, and he wasn't a man to dance in the same fire twice. (Most times.)

Year after that, she missed it. Miranda broadcast had just gone out; couldn't right show their faces in the Core. She promised him, _swore_ to him, it was all right, no trouble for her. She'd appealed for a bye. Guild allowed for such things under extreme conditions, she said.

It was after that she started getting sick.

* * *

_Translations_  
mài dòufu: 'whoring', literally 'selling tofu'  
nāozhǒng: 'coward', or 'weak'  
nǐ bú shì rén: 'you're not human'


	5. Chapter Four

**Chapter Four**

But those first months he knew her, wasn't much to pick up on. Not really. What had there been, after all? An awkward moment there, right on, when he accused her of running. Later, a violent client, and then her asking, her _needing_, to stay. The wave from Sihnon and the stop at Ariel. Looking back, he could see the order to it all, could tell himself till he was blue in the face there were things there he _should have seen_. But back then — it was like having a handful of pieces out of a puzzle of the black. Or like trying to catch fireflies in the dark. Damn elusive things; think you've latched onto one only for it to disappear before your gorram eyes.

But it wasn't so surprising that he couldn't make it all fit in those early days. After all, back then, in the beginning, he only barely knew her.

Hell, still didn't know her, much.

And so, for a time, he'd let it — the mystery of her, that niggling little sensation that something was _not as it should be_ — drop from his mind. Forgot about it near completely, truth be told — in large part, because he was momentarily consumed by a little slice of joy.

Not that Patience's shooting him in itself was a thing to be joyful in, mind. She was a damned conniving woman, and that bullet stung something fierce. But he would've held Patience's shooting him against her a hell of a lot harder if it hadn't've had a very particular result. That job — that shameful, botched job — marked the moment Zoe started softening toward their renter.

* * *

"Can't avoid me forever, Sir." Didn't need to look up from where he sat on the edge of the catwalk, looking out at the cargo hold (where he'd sat with _her_ a small handful of times), to know who it was. Wasn't surprised she'd found him; what surprised him was she'd let him be this long.

"What makes you think I was avoidin' you?" His voice was rough.

"What makes you think you weren't?"

* * *

Reckoned he wouldn't've been in the mess to begin with if Jayne hadn't decided to take leave for a spell to see his momma. The merc could kill a man without flinching, but when his momma wrote with news about little Matty, and its being his birthday, he was off before you could blink.

At the time, he didn't see no need for the merc, though. Plenty of jobs they'd done before they brought him on board, and this one seemed simple enough. Fellow on Persephone looking to sell off some weaponry couldn't legally be sold under Alliance watch. A man had guns in the Alliance, he went through the Alliance to get them (they had some interest in knowing precisely who could take up arms against them).

This fellow — name of Ihsan — had of recent caught notice of some work they'd done for Badger (mighty good work, if he said so himself: clean and fast). If they could find him a buyer, the job was theirs, but it had to happen quick. Well, any chance to get out from under Badger's wing he'd take. Man's commission was robbery, and his jobs stunk (sometimes in a way literal). And so he _did_ find a buyer, one Patience Mallory: ran a salvage op out of Whitefall.

He'd gone in expecting no trouble; the woman seemed harmless enough. He'd brought the cargo out on the mule, Zoe at his side. She'd shaken her head on the ride from Serenity to the place Patience'd marked for their meeting. "I don't much like it, Sir."

He shrugged. "What's not to like? She's just an old lady. Probably don't even know how to handle a firearm."

"Why'd she want Serenity left so far away?"

He shrugged. "Nothing funny in wanting to meet a man face to face, just you and him and the wind at your back."

"Still don't like it, Sir."

Shortly after they rode in, Patience and one other came riding up atop two ponies. "You Mal Reynolds?" Voice was old and young at once.

He nodded from where he sat on the mule. "That'd be me. And this here's my first mate."

Under her wide-brimmed hat, Patience grinned as she nodded at Zoe. "What's your name, girl?"

He could near hear Zoe's teeth grinding from where she sat beside him. "Name's Zoe."

"Zoe, eh? Zoe. I like that. Strong name for a strong girl. You got yourself some good taste, Mal Reynolds."

Yes, he reckoned he did. Zoe'd been right to begin with, of course. Most times she was. Sweet conniving Patience'd ridden out on her little pony, checked on her product, and by the end of it he'd been limping back to Serenity, leaning on Zoe for all she was worth — no money, no guns, no mule, and a bullet through his thigh.

"It gives me no pleasure to say, 'I told you so,' Sir."

He conjured from her smirk it most certainly did.

* * *

His first mate lowered herself down beside him on the catwalk, to his right, where _she'd_ always sat times they occasioned to be out here together. (Couldn't see that happening again anytime soon.) Brown leather boots Zoe always wore (made her look like some _femme fatale_, and he conjured that was the point; little Kaylee may not've thought she knew much about being a _girl_, but she knew a hell of a lot about being a _woman_) hung down over the edge, looking something different than the other's little slippers. He stared at them through narrowed eyes, in part so he wouldn't have to look at her. She cleared her throat. "You know, Sir, something on your mind, you can tell me."

Good bit of silence, then. When he finally made to speak, he felt her start a little in surprise. "Zoe —" His voice was something strangled and died on him. A beat of slience. "Zoe, how'd it feel when Wash —" He stopped, then, sudden. Shook his head, angry at himself. "_Bú yàoliǎn_" (he said to himself). To her: "Just look at me. I don't mean to —" He rubbed a hand across his face and then up through his hair with some violence. "Don't even know how I think I can think to compare. What you had with Wash, it was —. Gorramit, I never even — we never even —"

She smiled a sad little smile — one she'd been making an awful lot of use of in the months gone by since Wash's passing — and reached over for his hand. Held it for a time in her lap in both of hers, them just watching for a time the look of his skin pale against hers. "Doesn't make a difference, you know. Not one bit. Just means — just means you haven't had the good parts, is all. All the pain and none of the joy. That don't mean your pain's any less."

"What it _means_ —? What it _means_?" Just shook his head, let out a harsh laugh. "Tell you what it means. None of it means a damn thing."

* * *

'Nara hadn't come into the picture till later. It was his pilot and Kaylee — not the Companion — that came rushing at them as he hobbled into Serenity's cargo hold from out of the Whitefall sun. (He caught just a glimpse of her high above, on the catwalk near her shuttle, watching, and then she was gone.)

Wash, moving frenetically, hands all over the place as he made to check over his wife: "Zoe, Mal! I've been trying to reach you for two _hours_! I've been worried sick!"

Zoe shrugged as she shifted his weight from her shoulders to Wash's. "Patience took the mule and the comms. Left us with a bullet for our trouble. Don't think it's done too much damage. Maybe not as much as he deserves."

From over to his left, Kaylee spoke up, looking a little helpless. "Oh, _Cap'n_ — Does it hurt much?"

He grimaced. "Let's just say this is not my best day ever." And then: "Now, what do we do when this happens, again?"

And the shooting wasn't the worst of it, nowhere near. Damage wasn't much, like Zoe said. She gave him a field dressing until they could see someone about it on Persephone. Till then, he'd be hobbling around on an old crutch that must've been in the infirmary since before he bought the ship. No, the worst of it was trying to figure how he was going to explain to Ihsan that Patience'd played him. And that was what he and Zoe were doing some time later (as Wash guided their course), sitting side by side at the dining room table, both staring across the room.

"At least we still have one mule."

"Well, now, that makes things a heap better, don't it?"

She shrugged. "At least we still have half the product."

"One damn thing I did right, it seems." He sighed. "We'll just have to tell him we'll get the money to him. Maybe sell off the rest of the product in smaller chunks. Get more for it that way. And take cuts out of a few jobs to come."

Her voice came from the doorway. "That won't be enough."

Both their heads shot up. "Aw, hell, what's she doing here..." Zoe. "Don't you have places to be? Doesn't seem to me this is much of your business."

She shook her head in anger. "You _know_ that won't be enough. I know people like him. I've done business with them. He'll need some guarantee that you're good for it, and it will need to be good." She crossed her arms across her chest. "And somehow, I don't imagine he'll be very willing to take your word for it."

He glanced back and forth between Zoe and the woman in the doorway. _He keeps me alive_, she'd said to Wash when they were fighting. And at that moment, it seemed frightfully important to him to hold on to Zoe, make sure she was still with him and always would be. "When we need your help, we'll ask for it, you can be sure."

Hands on her hips, her eyes were all fire. "_Hútú dàn_, both of you." A beat. "You _will_ need my help. I guarantee it."

She stalked out of the room, and he dropped his head down to the table. "_Chùsheng_, we're humped."

* * *

She was quiet a little while before she spoke again, still holding his hand in hers. "I figured this was why you've been giving me wide berth. You've got it to mind that your being sad does me disservice. But there ain't no disrespect to that, Sir. I'll grieve for her the way you grieved for Wash, and I expect you'll grieve for her the way I did my husband. You and me're different people. We may love in different kinds of ways, but no less than the other."

* * *

He was a man around Mal's own age. Right now, they were in a dark library in his gated Persephone estate, Ihsan reclining, legs crossed, in a tall wingback chair, Mal standing before him (none too comfortably, what with that bullet in his leg), browncoat hanging like armor round him.

"So you're telling me you've lost — _half_ my merchandise, Captain Reynolds?"

Took a deep breath. "That's about the size of it, yes."

"But that you intend to repay your debt."

He nodded, pushed through his explanation quick. "A little time, and I can make what's left of the stock pay more than we were expecting. Awful lot of folk out there on an awful lot of backwater moons who'd like some means to defend themselves out in the black. And not all of them have enough sway with the Alliance to make it happen. I'll find them for you. I'll get your price. And if that don't meet the debt, I'll put aside from other jobs till we're square."

Ihsan watched him for a long moment as Mal shifted from foot to foot, hoping his nerves didn't show too bad. "I'll need collateral."

Meeting wasn't going none too well, it seemed.

"I'm an honorable man, and my crew's trustworthy. We'll do what I say we'll do. We didn't have to come back here, after all."

Ihsan raised an eyebrow. "Oh, I expect you did. Nobody in your line of work can avoid Persephone for long, Captain."

Heaved a sigh; pushed a hand through his hair. "I don't have collateral for you. All I've got's my boat and my word."

A quick nod. "Well, then. That will have to do."

Hopeful: "My word?"

"Your ship, Captain."

He shook his head, frowning and breathing hard. "You take my boat, I got no way to repay you."

Fingers tapping his lips, like he was thinking on it: "I imagine that Firefly of yours would just about cover it."

"Serenity's my home. She's my crew's home. She i'n't worth nothing to you."

"She's worth the price of your debt." A beat. "And in future, you might stand to be more careful with those things you care about, Captain Reynolds."

To think on the timing of it all still gave him a little thrill, thinking back. His mind was still reeling from the idea of losing Serenity — all over again. Worse this time, because wasn't nobody to blame but himself. And then Ihsan's attendant was opening the grand study doors leading into the dark mahogany room and clearing his throat. "Mr. Ihsan? There's an Inara Serra here for you. Companion of the First Class."

He heard her name, but he didn't know what to do with it. Her name didn't belong in that man's mouth, or in this room, or in this part of his life at all. He swallowed; looked up at Ihsan, discreet as he could, trying to conjure what it meant. He was a mite relieved to see the man's eyebrows lift — in surprise. "Oh? Show her in." With a glance his way. "I hope you won't mind."

About all he could do was give the man an exaggerated shrug, a great big lift to his shoulders. "Oh, don't mind me. You go right ahead. With the conversing, I mean. Not the — Companioning."

And then, Ihsan was standing, and there she was, gliding into the room in a long gold dress that shifted back and forth around her hips and legs as she moved, wearing something more of her jewelry than she tended to, her hair wrapped up around her head in a fashion ever-so-formal. Looking to be floating just above the ground as she held her hand out daintily toward his creditor, smiling that smile meant to charm the world: "Ah, you must be Sebastian Ihsan. It's a pleasure. I've heard talk of you."

And the man _was_ charmed, clear. Took her hand in his and bent at the waist to lay his lips on it. "I do hope none of it too bad."

A small smile; a small laugh. "All of it good, I assure you."

He watched Ihsan watching the Companion, breathing her in. "To what do I owe the honor, Miss Serra? And it is an honor."

Not a glance his way — but he could feel her, feeling him. Her voice took on a slightly different quality: it was the voice she used to conduct business. She'd used that voice with him plenty. Because theirs was a business arrangement, after all. "I've come to speak for him."

A startled laugh escaped his lips. "Indeed!" A beat. "I wouldn't have imagined. Are you certain about that, Miss Serra?"

Still without a glance his way: "Quite."

The man was quiet for a time, trying to read her. (Though he conjured that was near-about impossible; he'd tried times enough.) And then, the man nodded. "Very well. Captain, you're free to go. I'll expect payment in full within six months, if that's acceptable to you?"

Cleared his throat. "It's —"

Sharp: "He wasn't speaking to you, Mal." And then a smile at Ihsan. "Six months, but no interest on what's owed. Your payment will be the same as that originally contracted."

He glanced back and forth between them — they must've seemed quite a pair, him in his old browncoat, her in her fancy gown — and then nodded. "Very well." With a smile: "It's always good to have an ambassador for your cause, Captain Reynolds."

He nodded. "An _ambassador_." (Cracking a grin.) "That it is."

And then they were walking out of the estate, her arm, for no reason he could tell other maybe than that bullet in his leg, wrapped around his waist. "Didn't right know you Companion-folk could pull off things like that."

"You never asked."

"'First Class,' huh?"

Rolled her eyes at him, but there was a little smile playing around her mouth. "I've staked my reputation on you, Captain. You'd best start making good."

She'd come in the mule, and they rode it back to Eavesdown Docks, where Zoe stood, hands on her hips, in front of Serenity's gangplank. "Nice to see you, Sir. I reckon we've got some work to do about now. Just after we get that leg of yours seen to."

Neither Inara or Zoe ever told him what transpired between them. Sometimes in his mind he thought to that little conversation, conjured what they might've said about him. He imagined yelling, maybe a slap. Probably though it was none too exciting, maybe nothing more than the Companion saying she could help.

After, he'd sometimes catch them, perhaps a mite awkward, trading little knowing glances between them. And at those moments, he felt about as much joy as he could imagine — even if it wasn't the joy Zoe knew with Wash. What mattered was that Serenity was his, and she was a family, like she always should've been.

* * *

"Is one difference 'tween Inara and Wash, though, Sir."

He looked over, eyebrows raised.

His first mate took a deep breath. "Inara ain't dead. And you'd do well to remember it." And then she stood and walked away.

* * *

_Translations_  
bú yàoliǎn: 'shameless', literally, 'doesn't want face'  
hútú dàn: 'confused, clueless person'  
chùsheng: 'damn'; literally, 'animal'


	6. Chapter Five

**Chapter Five**

"Inara ain't dead," she'd said to him. As if he didn't know. As if he hadn't spent just about every second of the first few hours after he'd brought her body, limp in his arms, from her shuttle where he'd found her collapsed to the infirmary (where the boy wonder didn't even do him the courtesy of looking surprised) tracking the rise and fall of her chest. Sometimes he'd miss a breath, shake his head, quick, to rattle himself alert, then stare till he caught the next one.

No, she wasn't dead. He knew that. But he also knew from the look fixed on Simon's face she was _dying_; had been for some time. Dead, dying. Dying, dead. Wasn't much difference, really. They were all dying. They'd all be dead. And everybody dies alone.

It was strange to think on, though. It was one thing to think to himself she was _sick_ through it all. Quite another, though, to think she was _dying_. First time he'd met her on Serenity: _she was dying_. When she'd taught Kaylee to make them finger-weavings: _she was dying_. When she'd told him about seducing, him nearly drowning in her voice and in her eyes: _she was dying_. When she'd strode onto Ihsan's estate and paid him with her name: _she was dying_. When she'd told him she was leaving, should have long before: _she was dying_. Every time they'd fought: _she was dying_. Every time they'd laughed: _she was dying_. A million other little things she'd done, words she'd said: _she was dying during all of them_. Not just sick. Sick you get better from. Dying splits a body clear from its soul.

Seemed to him maybe that's what she'd always been about: a body working to split from its soul, and finding out it don't come clean.

It put a new spin on all of it, but at the moment his mind went back to that first time, her on his ship, they saw Reavers. And what had struck him at the time, what she'd _told_ him even, but what he'd pushed away like he'd done so much pushing away since he'd known her: _she hadn't been scared_.

After the run-in with Patience and the deal with Ihsan, he'd taken most any job came his way. Sold the guns off piecemeal across the rim. Cost him gas, but the haul was better that way. Gruvick, Horowitz, Holden boys all turned him on to scavenging jobs that paid some. Midway through it all Jayne was back, and he became freer still with the jobs he took. (Paid Jayne his standard ten percent on every take; no use him knowing about any of it at all, by Mal's thinking. Man was still something of an unknown quantity. Trusting someone like Jayne too far could get a fellow dead.)

Gruvick'd brought the job to him. Poor, dead Gruvick. Man'd gotten reports of an abandoned vessel, too far out in the black for most of the crews he worked with to feel comfortable with going. Had to've known such a thing as Reavers was likely: that's why no other crew would go. But he wanted the goods — which in this case was the ship — and offered a good price for the trouble.

Wasn't an easy task, even before the Reavers. Crew wasn't big enough to man two ships effectively. But Gruvick was paying well for the derelict, and so he was willing to stake a wish and a hope on it to get his renter back her name and him back his ship.

When he saw Gruvick's girl, floating out in the black, he understood. She was a big one, mighty powerful. They scouted it thorough — Kaylee in the engine room, him and Jayne checking the cargo — and then he gathered his crew in the galley. _She_ was there, too, just standing in the doorway: not in, not out.

"Well, I can tell you what's wrong with her, Cap'n." Kaylee crossed her arms in front of her chest at the table. "Compression coil's gone. Their catalyzer blew, an' they didn't have no other one to put in for it. That's why they took one of her shuttles."

Zoe frowned. "But why wouldn't they've come back for her?"

The mechanic shook her head. "Could be they couldn't find her. She's not sending out no beacon. And we're so far out. Wouldn't take too long of her driftin' 'fore it'd've been like findin' a needle in a haystack."

He nodded. "Well, can we haul it?"

She shook her head. "No, Sir. Serenity's a good girl, but she can't pull in somethin' that big. It's not her fault. She just don't have it in her."

"We got a part we could loan her?"

Her forehead wrinkled. "Well, yeah — takes the same catalyzer we got, an' I try to hold on to extras. So long's we get her back on the other end. Don't want to be hurtin' for spare parts an' such."

Zoe cleared her throat. "Well, if you don't mind, I think we best finish this conversation and be out of these parts quick as we can. We're a bit far into the black for my liking, and we've been here long enough as is."

From the doorway: "This is Reaver territory, after all."

All their heads turned toward her. Jayne's eyes narrowed. "Reavers? You di'n't say nothin' 'bout no Reavers, Mal. I thought we was agreed, no —"

Mal ignored him — fixed his eyes on the woman in the doorway. "What d'you know about Reavers?"

She shrugged, noncommittal-like. Her eyes held his. "Only what I overhear."

"Didn't hear you voicin' no complaints when I first proposed this here job."

(Jayne: "Well, _I'm_ voicin' a complaint —")

"I didn't have any complaints. It doesn't bother me. But I think Zoe's right. I think you should hurry."

Probably didn't have much cause to, but he bristled still. "You tryin' to tell me how to do my job?"

"I didn't know your job was that complicated." Her voice had gone icy, the way it went anytime she made to ward off one of his barbs.

"Harder than yours, I expect. Though may be that's a bad choice of words."

"Captain." Zoe. "You'll do well to remember that at least for the next little while she owns a good chunk of this ship. I'd play nice, I were you."

And then it was like the devil had heard him, heard them all. Wash, over the comm, yelling about sighting a ship in the distance, bathed in red, and then everything was moving at once: Kaylee to the engine room, and then through the hatch to the other ship; Wash from one bridge to the other, taking his triceratops and his wife, one in each hand. They rigged a hitch about as fast as he thought was possible, and then he was back on Serenity's bridge, Wash manning the other, and Wash was towing her faster, faster, faster, but it was taking so long, and just for a second he thought they were done for.

Turned on the comm. "'Nara?"

From her shuttle: "Yes, Mal?"

He swallowed once. "'Nara, we get boarded, I need you to go. I need you to fly your shuttle straight back in the direction we come from. Toward Gruvick. They won't follow you."

Her voice was all static. "But, Mal, why —"

"I ain't in the business of losing renters. Not good for a man's reputation."

"Well, I'm not in the business of defaulting on debts."

"'Nara —" And before he could think of quite how to finish, or even what it was he wanted to say, the ship jerked once and then they were going faster than Serenity, God love her, had ever taken him.

Around him, for a minute, everything was still (except for the stars flying past).

"We lost them." Wash's voice over the comm. He leaned back in his seat, took a deep breath, and closed his eyes.

* * *

He barely had ten minutes to himself after Zoe left him before Simon Tam came to interrupt his thoughts. "Zoe told me I'd find you here."

Mal looked over his shoulder at the the doc, standing above him. "Did she, now?" The boy was wearing that gorram black vest always seemed to make him seem (_so much like her_) so different than the rest of them. Leastways he'd lost those little glasses he came aboard with, somewhere along the way.

"She said you hadn't been hard to find. That she knew where you'd be because you and Inara used to sit here."

"Sounds like Zoe's been telling you a whole heap of things." He looked away from the doctor and stared down at the hold. Let some quiet pass by. When he finally did talk, his voice came out choked. "How long have you known?"

He could tell by the sound of his voice, the breaks in his speech, that he'd startled him. "Not — not too long. Since just before she — she left. I found out by accident —"

"Accident?"

He heaved a sigh of resignation. Resignation over what, Mal wasn't sure. "Amnon delivered one of her packages to me by mistake. The return address — it was a medical supplier. I — I didn't want to confront her about it, but it was impossible for her not to know that I knew. I had to return it to her."

And then he asked a question he'd wanted to know the answer to for too long, voice hitching again. "That why she waved you so often, when she was away? You were treating her?"

"Treating her?" Wasn't looking at Simon, but he could imagine him shaking his head. "No. No, I wasn't treating her, though I gave her advice from time to time. Not that it's any of your business, Captain, but she would have had no need for me to treat her when she had access to the Core. We spoke often because we were friends."

"Were?"

"Maybe you should be asking her these questions. I came to tell you she's awake."

* * *

Night after they'd left the ship with Gruvick on Beylix (if night could be told from morning or afternoon), enough money in his purse to pay back Ihsan and then some, he'd been walking around Serenity in a daze. Doing his rounds, Kaylee called it. Happened when he was too keyed up to sleep. Bridge was the last place he ended up, each time. Usually he expected this late it would be empty — course plotted, Wash and Zoe'd be off celebrating surviving the way they celebrated best (_the joy of it_, she'd said).

He wasn't expecting anyone, but there she was, sitting in that seat without the dinosaurs, the one that would come to be River Tam's in due course. There she was, sitting and looking out at the black.

He cleared his throat. "So. Busy day."

She turned her head suddenly toward him. "Yes. It was." A moment of silence, not entirely comfortable. He shifted between his feet. "I'm sorry. I probably shouldn't be here. There's just something about the black —"

Shook his head. "No need to apologize. You can go where you like. 'Sides, I guess Zoe's right. She's as much your boat as mine, till we get this payment to Ihsan."

She smiled at him. "Don't be absurd. I just wanted to help."

He made his way to Wash's seat and leaned back in it. And, for a spell, they watched the black together. "Why wouldn't you leave?"

She cocked her head to the side, her brow wrinkled. "Hmm?"

Didn't blame her for being confused. He could've just as easily been talking about that first fight as the events of the day. Wanted to know both, truth told, but the second something more urgent. "When I told you to take the shuttle. Why wouldn't you?"

She shrugged. "I didn't see any reason to."

Didn't right well know what to say to that, so went another way about it. Still looking out into the black: "Well, as well and good as that may be when it's just you and us here, if we'd had passengers, I'd've needed someone to —"

"Mal."

He turned his head toward her. She watched him for a second.

"If we ever have passengers, I _will_ fly them off Serenity if need be."

Couldn't think of a response, so he just nodded, just enough for her to see it. Kept watching her, watching him; watched each other in silence just about thick enough to slice. Finally, she turned her head back toward the black, a hint of a smile pulling at her lips (red, red lips). Her hair was gathered up, and in profile he could see the loose little leftover ringlets playing at the back of her long neck. Finally, he turned back toward the night.

His mind wandered. Thinking on that catalyzer they'd left behind, most like. Kaylee'd have a fit once she realized. Or maybe on where he might find himself some passengers. Didn't know how long they sat like that before her voice brought him back. It was soft, barely there.

"I may not be a soldier like you, but I'm not afraid to die, Mal. I don't _want_ to, but the thought of it doesn't make me afraid."

Didn't reckon it would do to tell her what it did to him.

* * *

He burst through the doors of the infirmary in a near state of panic and for a few seconds couldn't quite understand what it was he was seeing.

Didn't know quite was he was expecting, really. Some little moment of quiet, maybe: they wouldn't say anything much (they never did), but there'd be a look passed between them, and she'd _know_ what he wanted her to know.

Whatever he'd been expecting, this wasn't it.

Zoe was standing behind her, leaning against one of the doc's high counters, arms crossed across her chest and a grin on her face. Kaylee was standing to the Companion's side, holding her hand in hers and smiling too. And the woman herself was lying on the table in the middle of the infirmary (River crouched beneath it), same as she'd been for the days since he'd first carried her in. (He remembered her head, lolling back and forth against his arm, her hair cascading down toward the grating under his feet, and how scared he'd been that he was too late, that she was already dead.) But now, here she was awake, curled up child-like beneath a blanket (she pulled it up tight to her chin with the hand that wasn't holding on to Kaylee's). Her head was turned to the side, and she was _smiling_ — not the Companion smile, but that real smile he regularly thought he'd kill for.

And all of them were looking over at Jayne. Jayne, wearing his momma's asinine knit hat, arms stretched out to either side of him, grin splitting his face, like he was telling the funniest gorram story this side of the 'Verse. "And that husband of Zoe's says next town we go to, it's gonna be one where he's a damn hero!"

Jayne looked over as he pushed open the doors, his heart beating fast, mind racing, and the big man stopped talking — all of them just looking at him, expecting something of him. And seeing them all there, still smiling (her with a little hopeful smile, now), it was like he'd never felt so completely unnecessary — so completely out of place — in all his life. Whatever he'd been expecting, it wasn't frivolity, it wasn't some kind of pretending that all was all right. No, he'd been expecting to have somewhere to put all of the things churning inside him. He'd been expecting some truthsomeness. Should've known better ever to expect such out of the likes of her.

When he spoke, his voice was too hard, his expression blank. Couldn't well help it, though. Never could help the things came out his mouth. "What in hell you think you're doing, Jayne?"

Smiles dropped all around. Jayne pulled off the hat and scratched his head, sounding something confused. "Aw, I's just telling Ay-nara 'bout them Mudders, Mal."

Kaylee was still smiling, but seemed a little less sure of it now, biting her lip a little bit. "He was just singin' her the Jayne song, Cap. 'Member that? You shoulda heard 'im do it, too. It was somethin' else."

His voice didn't lose its edge; kept his eyes trained on Jayne to keep from looking at her. "She knows full well about the Mudders. What use could it possibly be to tell her the same stupid story all over again?"

Jayne's eyes narrowed at him; voice came through near-clenched teeth. "Just tryin' to make her laugh, Mal. Just tryin' to give everyone a laugh." A beat. "An' my story ain't stupid."

He stared back at the man. "Well, I don't much see that there's anything to be laughing about." He paused, just enough. "'Sides, she woulda heard it the first time if she hadn't been out whoring herself."

"Mal."

Her voice was quiet but it cut through his haze, and he did look at her finally. Looked so _different_, she did. And maybe that's why he hadn't looked before, because he'd been holding out hope that when she was finally awake and he did look at her, she'd look like herself, rosy cheeks on porcelain skin and curls falling around her face just so. But _this_, this he didn't want to see. Pale, so pale, with dark rings under her eyes (and they seemed a little less piercing, a little more tired, without their dark makeup). And thin. Thin as he'd seen her. _Dying_ — and being awake didn't make it no less. And all he could think about was the weight of her head, hanging over the side of his arm as he'd run along Serenity's catwalks.

She took a slow breath; pushed herself up with her elbows. Looked like it took her some effort, but he knew it would've cost her more not to do it, not to seem composed. She swallowed. "You can leave now, Mal."

He nodded once. "Well, I wouldn't like to displease such a very fine lady, would I?"

And walked out. Heard a few more words before he was out of range of their talking.

Zoe: "Inara —"

Her voice was weak, scratchy from disuse. "It's all right. It's what he needs."

"What is?"

"To hate me. To make me hate him." She sighed; coughed. "At least he needs to try."


	7. Chapter Six

**Chapter Six**

He didn't go too far. Started to — started to run off to the bridge or to the galley. But in truth he just wanted to be near. Wanted to hear her voice.

Most of them had gone by the time he'd circled back to the infirmary. And now he stood, back against the wall, right aside the infirmary's swinging doors, head tilted toward them, listening to her.

"Just tell me," she was saying, in a quietly determined voice. "I'm a big girl."

A small laugh from Simon. "Why do I get the feeling you've said that before?"

"Simon..."

A sigh. "I'd like to put you back under, as a precaution."

A beat. "Do you really think that's necessary?"

The sound of metal against metal as the boy methodically, Mal imagined, walked around gathering his instruments. "It will buy me time."

A pause. Her voice was gentle but prodding. "Time for _what_, Simon?" He could imagine just the look she was giving him, that bit of kindness came to her eyes on those occasions she'd come to him bearing bad news, when she'd been the one had to tell him his hopes were for nothing.

But Simon wouldn't listen. Didn't much blame him; he wouldn't've either. "Time to try to find some answers."

Gentler still: "Simon — I don't need you to do that. I've known this was coming for a long time. You have better things to do. Take care of your sister. Take care of Kaylee. I've had years to prepare myself."

"Well, the rest of us haven't, all right? Most of them have had two days." The rattle of the instruments grew more hurried, like the doctor was flustered or upset. "Please, Inara. I need this. I need to try. I can't lose —" An abrupt stop.

There was silence, too much for his liking. Were they looking at each other, gazes locked? Was the boy reaching out toward her? Or was he looking anywhere but at her? Took all he had to keep himself from bursting in on them, just to see. Footsteps, and Mal imagined Simon pacing around the infirmary, sorting things needlessly for something to do.

She finally spoke; her voice small, so small. Reckoned she'd be looking at her hands, now, like she did when she said anything nearing personal. "My mother died when I was six. She was only twenty-seven years old."

Simon sighed; stopped moving. Probably standing, hands in his pockets to keep from fidgeting, just looking at her. "Yes, I'd assumed something like that."

"She was a Companion, too. She was so beautiful." A break, and her voice caught a bit. "Can you believe that that's all I really remember about her? That she was beautiful?"

His response was soft. "You were only six, Inara. You can't expect yourself to remember much."

And then, barely above a whisper (a far-away sound), words coming slow with long pauses here and there: "I remember what she told me then, right before the end. She told me that I was lucky. That I was beautiful, too, and that I would still be beautiful when I died. That it was a gift from merciful Buddha himself, who loved all things beautiful."

Knocked him cold. His jaw was tight — fists clenched; unclenched; clenched again. Standing there beside the door, just out of sight, he wanted to laugh and cry and scream, scream, scream all at once.

Inside the infirmary, Simon swallowed audibly. Confusion in his voice: "But — but you still pray to him. _I've_ — I've prayed _with_ you."

"I'm grateful that you do that, you know. I know you don't believe."

In a disbelieving rush: "No, no, that's not the point. That's beside the point. Inara, I don't understand. What could you possibly have to say to him?"

Her voice just a breath. "I pray that he might keep his gifts to himself."

* * *

He'd disliked Simon Tam from the second he'd seen him standing there on Serenity's gangplank in his three-piece suit and secret agent glasses, gorram watch fob dangling from his pocket. Began right then thinking that this taking on passengers thing was a whole mess of trouble more than he needed. Disliked him then, but it hadn't been until that night that he started to hate him.

It wasn't about Kaylee, either. A soldier learned how to read a body — if he couldn't do that one thing, he died. And so he'd suspected from the start, from the way the newcomer ran to her when she fell, bleeding — from the concern in his voice when he talked her calm, the fact he said her name — that there was no way in the 'Verse Simon Tam'd've let her die. (Got his suspicions confirmed by the way the boy tore across the catwalks second he thought she might've.) It was like he said, he didn't kill people. He was a healer.

No, didn't start hating him till some time later. He was already angry at _her_ for letting the boy sway her to start, for that tone in her voice when she'd told him to do what Simon told him, for how neatly she'd been able to turn the blame from the doctor for not helping to him for not leaving. And then he'd gathered his crew in the galley to decide all together what should be done, and she'd announced in front of them all that if he threw the pair of them out she'd leave, too.

What he'd thought was that she'd finally told him the truth: it didn't take nothing more than a _shuai_ doctor in a three-piece suit to pull her from his boat.

What he'd said was that it might be best she did leave. "You ain't a part of this business."

What he'd done was keep the boy on, always somewhere in him fearful that the minute he left, she'd go to.

("_You'll ruin her, too_." Knowing full well he wasn't talking about Simon.)

Wash'd told him once that doing something stupid to keep the woman you love nearby was a kind of stupid he didn't mind.

Wished about now it was as easy as letting Simon Tam stay.

* * *

By the time Simon came out of the infirmary, leaving Inara to sleep, he'd shifted himself from the side of the door to the yellow armchair across the room. They hadn't been speaking much toward the end it seemed, Simon just asking the odd question about how she felt and whereabouts to find her medical records. He strode out purposefully, looking to be headed toward her shuttle. "So why'd you wake her up? Thought you were keeping her under on purpose."

The boy near jumped. "Mal. I didn't know you were out here."

"Reckoned as much."

Simon opened his mouth; closed it. Seemed to not know quite how to respond, so he went back to the original question. "I was. Keeping her under, I mean. It's what's called a barbiturate-induced coma. I'll be reestablishing it sometime tonight or tomorrow, but I needed to ask her some questions."

A raised eyebrow. "You get your answers?"

Simon ran a hand through that coiffed hair Kaylee was always going on about and sighed. "Some. Not all."

He nodded, slow, taking it in. "There any hope?"

A beat. "I don't know."

"Well, tell me what you do know, Doctor."

Shifted a bit, foot to foot, then sighed. "I know that her condition is one of a very rare class of neurodegenerative genetic disorders. The particular variety she's suffering from is mitochondrial."

"Which means?"

"That her mother's having had it ensured that she would, and that she would have passed it on to any children." Felt a bit of a jolt at that, like another piece locking in, but didn't say nothing, just let Simon talk. "I know that the grand mal seizure — it wasn't the first symptom, just the first one she couldn't hide. She told me she's been forgetting things for a few months now. Experiencing some nausea. Her hands shake; she can't hold things. She's been dizzy — she's fallen a couple of times. And she's losing her sight."

Thought about that grace of hers. He'd brought it to her as a joke, to make her blush, but it wasn't any less the truth for it. He swallowed. "But why now? Why so sudden? It's just since — She hadn't had problems —" Not knowing quite if he was talking to Simon or to himself: "I'd've noticed. I would've _noticed_."

Simon took a deep breath. "I'm sure you would've, if she'd let you. And besides, there was nothing to notice until quite recently. I haven't got it all worked out yet."

Felt himself getting frustrated. "Well, tell me what you _do_ have worked out. I ain't asking nothing too complicated, Doc."

The boy shrugged, shaking his head a bit. "I know she's been undergoing some kind of treatment on Ariel. I don't know what — she wouldn't tell me precisely. But I suspect it was something illegal, perhaps involving unauthorized testing of some kind. Whatever it was, it seems to have dramatically slowed the process of cellular division. I've heard of drugs out there like this but never seen one up close. Not one of them's been approved by the Alliance for legal distribution — while they can increase longevity to a point, their side effects aren't well-understood — and so they go for a handsome sum on the black market."

"Now, let me get this straight. She —"

"She slowed the progression of the disease by slowing down _everything_. And I suspect the rapid onset of her condition is a result of her withdrawal from the drugs."

"So? What're you trying to tell me? What're you going to do?"

A long moment of silence. "Mal. I don't know that there's anything I _can_ do."

* * *

Not too often Inara'd looked truly carefree on his ship. Thinking back on it he guessed he had to admit it was because she hadn't been. But then he had no explanation. She had hot and cold and then little serene moments in between, but them were carefully schooled. Even in her little moments with Kaylee — those he caught — she always seemed to have some weight on her, words in her mind that never made it to her lips.

He hated Simon Tam for a whole load of things, and one of them was that the very first time he'd seen her looking _free_ it was in his arms.

He'd come at the cargo bay along the catwalks. He'd heard the music — fancy, classical sort — before he conjured what it was.

The Shepherd (couldn't well explain how it happened he missed a _preacher_ so damn much; felt more than a pang every time he thought of him, every time he caught sight of that cross he wore in the war hanging in his bunk) was leaning over the railing of the catwalk, little Kaylee sitting cross-legged on the grating beside him, chin propped up on her hands and a big frown on her face. The Shepherd grinned at him as he came in, nodding toward the girl. "Seems as though Kaylee here asked the doctor if he'd teach her to dance."

She rolled her eyes at the preacher, shaking her head indulgently like she'd explained it a million times already. "Wasn't nothing to it, Shepherd. I was just tryin' to lift his load, s'all. You know he's been some kind of a train wreck since that business with the derelict. Was gettin' a little worried he ha'n't quite got that suit on right and th' lack of oxygen'd gone straight to his head."

The Shepherd just shook his head with a smirk. "Mmm-hmm. _Unfortunately_ for Kaylee here, it didn't take Simon too many times being stepped on to decide that the best way to teach is by example." He raised his eyebrows suggestively. "But it doesn't seem to be the kind of lesson our engineer here was hoping for."

She crossed her arms across her chest and sighed dramatically. "Just don't see why he was so anxious to keep from puttin' his hands on _me_, is all!" A beat, and she grumbled: "'Sides, she gets hands put on her all the time."

Book laughed under his breath same time as he chastened her playfully: "Kaylee!"

She huffed in indignation. "Well, it's the truth, ain't it?"

Mal grinned. Couldn't see for the life of him what she saw in that fancy-pants, but she tickled him to no end. "So, then, Miss Kaylee, what exactly are we —" His voice died in his throat as he looked over the catwalk. "Oh."

It wasn't nothing. Nothing. They were dancing, was all. River was twirling by herself well to the side of them, and they were dancing.

Her right hand raised, just barely touching his left, her left playing at his biceps, his right floating over her waist. Feet playing quick over the ground as their turns made wide, fast circles around the empty cargo hold. She wore something a bit more billowy around the legs than usual — more fit for dancing, he supposed — and the doctor was in a dark vest and pants, white shirt-sleeves rolled up around his elbows. They moved perfectly together; she followed his slightest gesture. And the thing about it, for all that perfect movement, it was like they weren't even thinking about it. It came completely natural. She wasn't watching her feet, like he knew he'd be doing: she was watching the boy, eyes dancing as much as her body, as he murmured little somethings to her, and every now and again she'd laugh aloud without missing a step.

Wasn't nothing. Just dancing.

Another little huff of breath from near his feet. "It's like some fairy tale, and I don't get to be in it!"

Heard Book in the background, cajoling little Kaylee, but he couldn't much pay attention; couldn't much tear his eyes away (from the smile on her face as she listened to him talk; from the pink of the back of her neck where her hair was swept away; from their bodies, near touching but not quite; from his hand, possessive-like, on the small of her waist).

And then, she did miss a step. At the outside of the circle, where he had the clearest view of her, she glanced up at them (away from Simon), and she found his eyes.

Her smile fell, and she faltered.

Before he knew quite what was going on she was pulling away from the doctor, smiling and apologizing, one hand to her chest, like to catch her breath, the other on his arm, like to steady herself. "— can't keep up with you!" he heard her saying, which was a load of horse manure as far as he was concerned. Then she was looking up and calling to them. "_Mei mei_, come down. Simon wants to dance with you." She took him by the hand and was pulling him toward the stairs; the boy was grinning bashfully and shaking his head.

Kaylee let out one last puff of air as she stood up. "Looks like Simon's had about enough dancin' for one day. I got an engine needs dancin' with, you'll excuse me."

She left, and then the preacher was patting him on the shoulder and walking out after her. Over his shoulder: "You be careful, son." He kept watching for a bit — after he should've left, he reckoned — as River kept dancing, now in the middle of the room, and the Companion had last words with Simon, him grinning like he hadn't in all the time he'd been on his boat. (Every now and again she'd steal a glance up at him.) And then Simon was walking back toward the infirmary, still smiling some stupid smile, and she was walking up the stairs toward her shuttle — pausing and lowering her eyes just as she got to him before brushing past when he didn't move. Behind him, he heard the hatch to her shuttle slide closed.

And then River, below, staring up at him, and he just looked at her, a little disarmed. "I see you," is what she said.

* * *

He looked at the doctor, hard, then down at his lap. When he spoke again, his voice was rough. "You know, she'd never tell me them things she just told you. She'd never even think to try."

Simon's hands went to his hips; he raised an eyebrow. "Well, have you ever tried _not_ being so _bù rén cí de_?"

That, again. Like what she's said all that time ago. Not even human, she'd said. Tried to cover up his hurt in a sarcastic retort: "Well, have you ever tried _not_ being a smart-ass?"

"Droll. Very droll." He shook his head, grinned a humorless grin. "You know, I just can't understand you. You seem to love her. And she, for some reason that completely escapes me, seems to love you, too." Pointed at the infirmary. "If a woman like _that_ —" He shook his head.

Mal's eyes narrowed. He stood and took a step toward the boy, wanting to get above him. In something like a growl: "You know, you think you understand her because you're from her class, because you know the same jokes and dance the same dances. You think you understand her, but you don't understand her at all."

Simon's eyes flashed. "I think I understand her just fine, Captain. I think maybe you're the one who doesn't understand. I think I understand her because we've both been hurt, and because we both want more than anything in the world something we can't have."

Another step toward the boy. "That so? What is it? What is it that you both want so damn much?"

Simon didn't flinch. "Normal lives."

Hurt worse than the words before. Because maybe he was right. Maybe if he didn't understand _that_, that little, simple want, he wasn't really _rén_ after all.

And then it was him taking a little step backward. He choked over his words. "So tell me, Doctor: if you're so convinced there's nothing you can do, then why are you even trying?"

He stared at Mal for a long time. "Because I have to have hope, Mal. And I think that's what you've lost."

After a moment of still, the doctor walked away, and Mal stood quietly for a time. From the far side of the room, a few quiet words: "I see you." By the time he'd looked up, she was gone.

* * *

Course, in the end, it didn't take Simon leaving to make her go. In the end, all it took was him.

* * *

_Translations_  
shuai: 'handsome'  
bù rén cí de: 'inhumane'  
rén: 'human'


	8. Chapter Seven

**Chapter Seven**

He stood still for a bit after the boy's departure, but it didn't take him none too long to follow Simon to shuttle number one.

Poked his head in to find Simon working through the data on her Cortex screen. Felt some indignation that he was rummaging through the details of her life — but if he was honest with himself, he'd admit it wasn't so much the invasion of her privacy (he'd done that plenty himself) as it was, first, that it was _Simon_, and, second, that the boy knew every bit as much about her as he did himself. "So." A beat. "What're we looking for?"

Simon didn't look up. "Clues. Anything." Voice faded off while he read over some information on the screen, but then he looked over his shoulder. "She told me how to access her official medical records, but, like I said, there's more that she's not telling me."

"And you know for sure that's the case?"

Simon nodded. "Abnormalities in her blood tests are consistent with the kinds of drugs I mentioned. Like I said, I'd never seen the effects myself, but I'm aware of them. Early drug tests on these products were inconclusive enough as to their benefits and effects that the ADA refused to approve them for distribution. But they're available through other outlets. People call it — people call it the 'fountain of youth.'" He sighed and shook his head. "And if she's been participating in tests, or going to a backstreet distributor, something like that, she must have some record of it. A name, an address, an identification number. Something."

Mal closed his eyes; took a deep breath. "Okay. Tell me what I can do."

"Look around the shuttle while I search the Cortex."

It was all manner of funny. When she lived here, him bursting in unannounced was nothing short of normal. When she'd left a trunk of her things on his boat after she'd left, he'd had no particular qualms about rummaging through it (and pocketing one of the scarves and the three short captures he found inside). As recent as the day before, he'd let himself in, let himself rest on that red sofa when the images burning behind his eyes in his own bunk had been too fierce for sleep. But now, the doctor wanted him to look around her shuttle to help her, because she _needed_ it from him, and he could barely move a muscle.

Took one step into the shuttle, then another. Not much helping with Simon's search but instead looking for those little signs of _her_ he'd ignored or missed through these years he'd known her. Little signs of her hopes and dreams and wants and needs that were buried in all these trinkets. Ran a finger over a porcelain elephant he swore she'd probably told him a dozen times not to touch. A calligraphy set and drawing pad, the shaky scrawls that were visible on the top page made by Kaylee's hand. A small chess set on a sideboard, nearing its endgame, just a few pieces left in battle. (Wondered for a time who it was she'd been playing with but pushed the question out of his head.)

He bent down to set right a table that'd been knocked over by her fall; put the trinkets back on it one by one, most feeling liable to break under his fingers.

And then he caught sight of something on her bedside table, and in no time he was sitting on the edge of her bed and holding in his lap a small wooden box, ornately carved. Lifted the top off, carefully, and he realized he was looking at her childhood.

A lock of black hair, maybe from her first haircut; a few baby teeth, probably once tucked neat under her pillow; a glass marble and a silver necklace; and a capture, no more than a couple seconds long, of a woman, her mother, hand over her mouth, trying to hide a laugh that bubbled out of her (a gesture he knew too well). Had to admit she was beautiful, even if he hated her to his core for them few words spoken years and years before.

"She tries to remember her."

Turned his head over his shoulder and there was his albatross, bent at the waist and leaned in to watch the capture as it repeated over and over (Simon, across the room, turned toward them, eyes narrowed and body tensed, likely worried he might once again raise a hand to the girl). He followed her gaze back down to the dark-haired beauty in the capture; voice came out a choked half-question. "That so."

She nodded, her eyes wide as she continued to watch those thin fingers covering that small laugh.

"Thinks to herself that maybe, if she could just remember, she'd know there was a time when she was happy."

* * *

After his smart comment to the Shepherd when he'd first introduced them, she'd all but stopped coming to the galley for dinner. All Kaylee's hard work undone, a thing her little occasional dinnertime glares didn't let him well forget. Like she'd said to the Shepherd that first day, she'd kept to herself. But it wasn't on account of the holy man, since him, or the doctor (River in tow), or Kaylee, one, would tend to disappear to her shuttle for an hour or so after dinners to take her leftovers and conversation. No, it wasn't for the preacher, and it wasn't for the doctor. After seeing them dance, he always felt a twinge when it was Simon took her her meal. She'd spent more time with him and his sister after their little spacewalk, like she saw it (for reasons he couldn't conjure) her job alone to soothe his mind. Saw them on occasion through the windows of the infirmary, talking or laughing or just sitting quiet, River there as often as not with her eyes fixed on the Companion and something like a smile on her face. River'd always been drawn to her; that much was plain.

But still she'd kept away from Serenity's galley, not on account of the newcomers but on account of him, he reckoned. He never took her food himself (pride kept him away), but he found other ways of paying her visits (ways of trying to tell her without telling her that he didn't mean it, never meant it, just said it, couldn't stop it). Came to tell her they were touching down, or to inquire after her plans. Things what related to her business and his schedule.

On one of those visits, paid not long after a particularly good evening (to his mind) of theft and billiards planetside, he caught his first sight of Atherton Wing (man not unlike Simon Tam, he thought: rich, young, elegant, entitled). And then a flurry of activity, and a dance (a mite less studied than that what he saw in Serenity's hold), and a fight (not so very studied, neither, that), and they were sitting on the edge of the catwalk, where he and Zoe'd sit much later when she'd tell him she didn't hold his grief against him, watching cows, and she told him, in not so many words, that she accepted his apology. Told him again that she wanted to stay.

After that, she started taking her dinner in the galley again (River's eyes, and Kaylee's too, lit up every time they saw her come in), and things became easier between them for a time.

The evening that now played across his mind was one such evening. She walked in and smiled shyly when she caught him watching her, her head tilted down. Her voice soft: "Hello."

Let out the breath he'd been holding, eyes trying to read her face, hands, body. "Hello."

She glided past him; ran a hand over River's hair and leaned down to lay a quick kiss on her crown as she passed the girl. Took her seat at the far side of the table from him, Simon and his sister to her right. (Reached out to squeeze the boy's hand as she sat down, and his eyes shone as he looked at her and smiled.)

It would've been fine, just fine, if the Tam girl hadn't gone and opened her mouth. He'd managed to push down his annoyance at the way Simon looked every time he met her eyes. Jayne was in a rare good mood, trading tales with the preacher (Wash throwing out the occasional barb). And when he himself had cause to laugh, even that wasn't so very painful as it'd been over the past few days (hole in his side seemed to be healing up nicely).

When River spoke, she'd been doting on Kaylee, wiping a smudge from her face, tucking her hair behind her ear. River was watching — he'd noticed. And when she went and said what it was she said, the Companion's hand stilled; color drained from her face, and she pushed back against her chair near fast enough to tip it over. Before anyone could say a word, she was gone.

At the time, the girl's exact words hadn't stayed with him. Didn't seem important. What he'd remembered was what happened after: Kaylee, looking confused and hurt; Wash, making a joke about the food; Simon, standing to go after her; River, watching her brother with serene eyes. He'd stood and blocked Simon, keeping the doctor in his seat, and then gone after her himself, not much knowing what to say, still not knowing when he'd gotten to her shuttle.

Walked in straight away and wasn't much surprised not to find her crying. Woman didn't much cry, it seemed to him. She wasn't ever scared, and she didn't cry. Only other woman he knew like that was Zoe. Zoe'd learned to hold back in war. As much as he'd wondered about Inara, it'd never struck him to wonder when she'd learned the holding back.

When he came in, she was sitting at the Cortex, tapping at its gorram screen (filled with pictures of men that made his stomach roll); didn't look up at him. "I don't recall inviting you in."

He stayed in the entry of the shuttle, rocking on his feet; shrugged once. "Don't guess you did. Came to check on you. You left in an awful hurry. There some problem you're a mind to share?"

She turned toward him then, smiling a tight saccharine smile at him. "Something Kaylee said reminded me of an appointment I'd failed to confirm. It's done now. There's no problem."

He blew out a frustrated breath; shook his head and pushed his hands deep in his pockets. "You know, it wouldn't hurt you none to let a soul in every now and again."

Her eyes narrowed, and her reply was fast and sharp, like an arrow aimed true. "Don't you _dare_ talk to me about letting people in, Mal Reynolds. Don't you dare."

All he'd known to do was nod once; left her shuttle without saying another word (all the while pushing down the feeling that maybe Simon Tam would've done a better job with it). Wished now he'd known what to do, what to say. Wished he'd paid more notice to what'd set her off to start. Might then at the very least have avoided that particular misstep that came later, when he'd (not without fondness, and not thinking of Saffron in the least) taken chance to paint himself for her as a father. "Can you imagine that? Me, with a whole passel of critters underfoot? Hell, ten years' time..." Her anger then had hurt him good, mostly because all the while he was talking he'd been thinking about her.

But he hadn't paid attention to River's words, and so he couldn't tie it all together in his head until much later, until right now. What River'd said then, watching Inara tuck Kaylee's hair behind an ear, was: "It's too bad. You would've been a much better mother than she was."

* * *

"I was right. She would've been."

Wasn't much surprised she'd read his thoughts, though Simon, across the room, looked a mite confused. Her long hair fell across her face as she kept her eyes on the capture. He took a breath. "Doesn't mean you should've said it. Sometimes folks don't want to hear a thing that's true. Sometimes a thing that's true is also a thing painful."

Keeping her eyes on the capture, her voice monotone: "It was a good truth. It made her sad but also glad. Like the Shepherd's symbol. A good truth. Sad and glad together."

"Well, I ain't so sure gladness is worth sadness if it's in equal parts."

"I know. That's a mistake. Means you're always sad."

And then something dawned on him, and his jaw felt stiff. "You've known. You've known all this time." A beat. "Years. You've known since you first got here." As his voice got louder, Simon stood, ready to rush to her aid if he lifted his hand. But she didn't seem too bothered, just stood up straight, and he watched her as she walked across the room, with the movements of a dancer, and reached into a small drawer.

Simon, standing in front of the Cortex: "Can someone please tell me what you're talking about?"

The girl walked back toward him and pressed something into his hand; tilted her head and looked at him. "You're not the only one who needs for her to live. My brother needs that, too."

* * *

Course, she never held River's intuitions against her. She took the girl under her wing and, even that incident, it was like she knew that she'd meant well. Then after Jiangyin (he couldn't leave them behind, knew somewhere in him she'd leave, like she said, if he did), she'd spent more time than before with the girl, sitting with her in the Tams' guest room, or in the shuttle, or in the infirmary or the lounge: telling her stories, brushing her hair, lulling her to sleep, soothing her out of bad dreams — like to protect her from the world.

Sometimes he saw Simon watching them. The boy'd wear a wistful smile as he looked from across the room, or the galley, or the hold. And then he'd drop his eyes and walk on. Never seemed to notice his sister's eyes on him as he left.

* * *

River was gone as soon as she'd come, seemed like, and now Simon was looking rapidly between the metal pill vial she'd left in Mal's hand and the screen of the Cortex. "So what is it?"

He held the silver vial close to his eyes; squinted. "I'll have to run some chemical tests to be certain, but if the contents are true to the labeling, it's a very strong analgesic — an opioid, to be precise. But it wasn't prescribed at one of her documented medical visits. The serial number on the vial doesn't match any records in her official files."

"So if we can figure where she got that —"

Simon nodded. "We might be able to to determine something more about the unorthodox treatments she was receiving, yes."

"Well, any clues so far?"

"The serial number matches a batch of drugs distributed by Blue Sun. But that's about all I can tell without more information." He let out a long breath; closed his eyes tight and scrubbed a hand over his face. "If I could just put it all together — there's got to be something here I'm not seeing. If I could just figure out _why_ she's not telling me, I'd have a start."

He shrugged, but the gaze he levied at the boy was angry. "Seems plain enough to me. She's protecting you."

Simon looked back over his shoulder at him. "What do you mean?"

"We put all this together, we go back to the Core and do whatever we can to make her right. Return trip to the Core ain't the safest venture for you and that sister of yours, but she reckons you might just be crazy enough to try it." He paused, and when he spoke up again his voice sounded hard to his own ears. "Seems to me, then, you're the reason she didn't go back this year for that appointment. That means you're the reason she's sick now; and you're the reason she's not getting better, because you're the reason she's trying to keep us away from the Core."

Simon's eyes narrowed, fury plain in them. "You seem to forget, _Captain_, that I'm not the only one who's not safe in the Core right now. I'm not the only one she's protecting."

And then, as if out of nowhere: "Do you love her?"

Simon's eyes went a bit wide. "What?"

Swallowed down a lump in his throat. "You heard me."

The doctor cocked his head and looked carefully at him. "You know, I'd never known a Companion before her."

Eyebrow raised: "Boy of your class? Hard to believe."

Simon let out a breath of a laugh, pulling a self-deprecating smile. "I know, I know. Some of my classmates even had coming-of-age ceremonies with Companions. But I —" Another small laugh. "I always swore to myself that I'd never take a Companion." He looked down. "I've never been very good with women in the first place, and I was terrified of the thought of Companions. Because, you know, growing up, you're always told —" Stopped, smile falling from his lips; shook his head.

"What? What're you told?"

"It's nothing, just a saying, really. It's silly."

"What is it?"

The boy took a deep breath. "They say — they say: never tell a Companion the truth."

Felt an uneasiness about him. "And what'd they mean with that?"

"The idea is that... that you can't help but fall in love with a Companion, but that she'll never love you in return. So when you're with her... you have to lie."

Felt like a sucker-punch to the gut. "Oh."

Simon shook his head. "But, don't you see, it's not _true_, Mal. It's just something stupid, a schoolyard chant, something boys tell each other before they even know what it means. Because they're scared of life and love and all the mysteries of the universe. But for you to go on believing something like that — for you to believe that, like you do, is for you not to believe in her."

Some of the fury'd drained out of him, but he had to ask again anyway, like to rekindle it. "So, do you love her?"

The doctor let out a short laugh; shook his head (almost like pity). "That's a meaningless question with a meaningless answer, and the only reason you're asking is because you need someone other than yourself to be angry at for all the time you've wasted." A beat, and Simon stood and took a step toward him. "Well, you know what? You can't have it. You don't deserve it. You deserve to be angry at yourself. You're the one who's wasted time. You. You're to blame." He closed his mouth into a small, tight smile. "She loves you, Mal. She has since I first met her. She loves you because you love her in spite of what she is instead of because of it." A beat, and he squeezed his hand tight around that little silver vial till it shook. Then he turned away. "We'll do everything we can, Mal. I promise."


	9. Chapter Eight

**Chapter Eight**

The thing of it was, the boy was right. He was no better than Simon's schoolyard friends, scared of life and love and hiding himself behind the mysteries of the universe. And maybe he was right about that second thing, too. Maybe he believed she wouldn't love him back because he didn't believe in her.

_Love him back_. When had that happened? When had he started to think love had something to do with it? It wasn't straight away, that much was certain. At the start, she'd just been something to think on. A pretty something. A mysterious something. A damned frustrating something.

Soon enough, the pretty and the mysterious and the frustrating'd become too much to bear, and she'd become something he _wanted_, wanted fierce, from a place so deep down inside it near-about rent him whenever he felt it. Wanted her body but more than anything wanted her soul.

But somewhere along the line — couldn't quite put his finger on the moment — that'd changed. That first wanting, he figured: it had been a wanting to _take_. Body or soul, didn't matter. He wanted something that was hers to give, and he wanted it freely given (no wiles or coin in sight). And that was how he knew it'd changed. One day, out of nowhere, he had a notion that what he wanted was to _give_.

The wanting to _take_ — it was as powerful as he'd ever experienced; felt it in his skin and his gut and his chest. The intensity of it was new, but the fact of it wasn't much. But the wanting to _give_ — that there was something he'd never experienced. He wanted to give of himself to her. Not just to her, but _for_ her — wanted to tend to her, to reach in and fix whatever that little thing was inside her that'd gone wrong. And for _him_, too — wanted to tell her things he'd never told a soul, unveil himself before her, lay himself bare.

It was a wanting harder to fight than the first kind, that much was certain — whether because of the newness of it or the strength of it, he wasn't too sure.

Took him a while to figure out why the wanting changed, but he finally did. And what it was he finally figured was that _that_ — that peculiar brand of wanting, the wanting to give — _that_ was love.

* * *

First thing he did when he left her shuttle was go to the bridge and call everyone to the galley (to tell them about a job, he said). It was like someone'd lit a fire under him where there'd been nothing but smoke before. Simon. Simon had done it. Because it wasn't just about _love_ that the boy was right. He was right about something else, too: about hope, about trying.

When he got down to the galley, the picture he found nearly put some of that fire out. Zoe, sitting at the table, head in her hands, a look on her face like resignation (a look he hadn't even seen when Wash'd passed, when she swore to him she'd fly true). Simon and Kaylee on the sofa in the back of the room, Kaylee with her face buried in his neck, him with an arm around her, stroking her hair, whispering something to her to comfort but with a thoughtful look on his face that said he was thinking on something else entirely. And Jayne —

Jayne was standing in front of him, a menacing look on his face. His voice was dead serious. "I got words to say to you, Mal. Reckon we all got words to say to you after that little stunt o' yours. Woman in there is _dyin_'. You hear me, fella? _Dyin_'. If you're just gonna sit around thinkin' 'bout new jobs and generally bein' a jackass to those near and dear —"

Felt chastised but tried not to let it show much. Rolled his eyes up at the big man. "Nice speech, Jayne. But this job is _for_ her." The merc relaxed some (took a bit of a step back and leaned against the cooker), but his eyes were narrowed and his arms were crossed across his chest, like to tell him he wasn't satisfied just yet.

He stood at the head of the table, hands braced against the back of the chair, and looked out over his stragglers. Zoe'd looked up at him, a quizzical look on her face. Kaylee'd tilted her head up from Simon's shoulder; face was streaked red. Simon looked about the way he had since he came in: not at Mal, not at anything. Eyes fixed to nothing, like he was furiously working through something in his mind. River stood, back straight against the wall opposite him, that endless serene look on her face, like always.

He was quiet for a bit, trying to gather his thoughts. And then he spoke them.

"Been talkin' to the doctor. Likely he could explain it better to you himself. But what I take from him is this: her dyin' ain't needed. At least not right now. There's medicines in the Core can buy her time —" Quieter: "Buy us time." A breath, and, "She made a choice in stayin' here after Miranda. She chose to stay with us." This part hard to say: "To stay with me — and don't think I don't know that." A beat. "I don't reckon any of us except her, and maybe Simon over there, knew how big a choice that was. And he'll have to work through that knowin' in his own head, as he will. Because in choosin' to stay with us, she was choosin' to lose access to the Core. In choosin' to stay with us, she was choosin' to die." A long pause. "But the way I see it, it wasn't just her choice to make."

* * *

When had it happened? It was gradual and sudden at once. He'd first noticed there was room in him for the _wanting to give_ when he'd found himself wed to that minx Saffron. It was a simple thing, really. She'd come to speak to him in her words meant to deceive, and he'd found himself talking about Shadow. On and on, it seemed, until he realized what he was doing.

It took him aback for a second: didn't know what to do with it. When all was said and done, he'd blamed it on her wiles (easy to blame so much on that particular trade, fair or not).

But when he looked back on it later, it came to his mind that it was more than that. Because when he looked back, he realized he hadn't so much minded the telling — just wanted to be doing the telling to _her_. In fact, the telling had started in a different part of Serenity, in her shuttle, when he'd put his mind to children. She'd snapped at him, and he'd felt hurt. But there in the hold, when out of nowhere he'd started in on Shadow and ranching and branding and his momma, he was _still_ talking to her, and imagining she wanted to listen.

It was something he didn't full understand, this brand of wanting. It was like wanting to melt himself down and pour himself into her; fill all her cracks with bits of himself to make her whole. And him, too: because for a long time, the new kind of wanting filled those weak spots in him, too.

But the when of it? Gradual and sudden at once, true.

The happening of it was gradual. There was less fighting. Managed to joke about her profession (talk of kissing) in a way less caustic than normal. That moment in her shuttle, when he sent her away, and he couldn't tell her that the reason he couldn't leave was that if he couldn't fix Serenity, _none_ of them had any hope. Felt a fondness for her — constant, powerful — that was different to normal, and a shyness about her that wasn't there before.

But the realizing of it — not of the wanting, but of the love — was sudden. He remembered the very moment when it'd become something he'd _known_. Her knock on the hatch to his bunk had been soft and he knew, _knew_, it was her. Bullet he'd taken on account of the catalyzer still had him sore, but he'd stood for her as she climbed down. Was just pulling on a shirt when she tucked her head into the room (was that pink rising to her cheeks?). She made it to the ground and looked around warily; clasped her hands together like being here was a thing made her nervous (though that certainly hadn't been the case the first time she'd been here, and the second was something he couldn't fully piece together on account of Saffron and her poisons).

She looked at him with them big eyes, lips just parted but without speaking. He swallowed a lump in his throat. "I do something for you?"

A bit more silence, and then: "Ariel." Cut her eyes down to the floor. "I need to go to Ariel."

His hands stilled along the buttons of the shirt. And he nodded once (though she wasn't looking). "Just tell me when you need to be there."

Lifted her face to him quick, surprise and gratitude written plain across it. "Thank you."

She was turning to leave, her hand on the ladder, but he felt like he wanted to stop her. "It really been a year already?"

She turned her head back over her shoulder, and the smile she laid on him was something a bit sad. "Time is a thief."

He'd held her eyes for a moment seemed to last an age (her eyes wide, unguarded), and then she'd nodded a bit and climbed up and out of his bunk and he'd thought to himself that that was just about the truest truth he'd ever heard in his whole life.

He'd sat down on his bed, shirt still hanging half-open from where he'd forgotten to finish buttoning it, and he'd looked at his hands (hands that'd killed and maimed but had tended, too), and he realized there, in that moment, that he'd do anything for her.

It was maybe on account of this new kind of wanting — love, if that's what it was — that the next fight they _did _have stung so bad. She accused him of keeping her away from her job, and maybe it was true. Mocked his work, and maybe it was deserving. "You're not my lover," she'd said. But it was what came next hurt the worst: "Neither are you my mother, my House Mistress, or anyone who has the slightest say in how I conduct my affairs." It was like she'd seen through him, seen the _wanting to take_ and the _wanting to give_; and in one flat second she denied his claim, right out. He was someone had no say in her life.

But then she'd come to him, once Saffron was aboard. And something in him — his love — let him hear her out. She'd concocted a plan. She'd be his fail-safe. And he didn't put up an argument because he wanted her to be just that — to be part of his world.

For a time, seemed like she was.

* * *

He took a deep breath. "I know you all ain't a part of this. But you know me well enough to know if there's a chance, I'm gonna reach for it."

None of them said a thing, though River's face had taken on a little smile. He looked around the room, at each of them. "Zoe, I don't want you comin'. We know the Alliance keeps pictures of you on account of your dust devilin' past. They're out for you. And if this don't go down right, well, Serenity'll need a captain." Looked to Simon (feeling his jaw tighten). "And you and your sister'll stay put here, too. We've lost a hell of a lot keepin' you safe. Ain't about to make them losses for nothin'." Then, finally, a look at Jayne: "Way I see it is it's you and me. If you're game, course." Took a deep breath. "I can't lie. There's no coin in it for you. But if you meant what you said just now, I'm holdin' some hope you might think on it."

* * *

It was Tracey that finally helped him work up some courage. Those things Tracey said, at the end: "Wasn't no good at life, anyhow. Couldn't seem to make sense of it, always running scared." And that soldier's mantra: "When you can't run anymore, you crawl. When you can't do that, you find someone to carry you." Supposed, in the end, that what that was all about was the wanting to give. What that was all about was love. Maybe the lesson of it all was that running scared stopped when a body found someone he wanted to carry, someone who'd carry him.

He'd stopped by her shuttle sometime after they left Tracey on St. Albans, looking for a spell of awkward conversation, his mind going back to that moment in the galley, him talking about Tracey (didn't know quite why he'd started talking about the war; reckoned Zoe's being there made it feel safe), when she'd reached out and touched his arm. Time was a thief, truest of truths, and even a spell of awkward conversation was a moment he couldn't get back once it was missed.

Knocked, and heard her shuffling inside. Hatch slid back, then, and there she was, standing in flowing silk, hair long around her shoulders. Swallowed once and threw this thumb over his shoulder, gesturing meaninglessly to the space behind him. Shuffled between his feet. "Just stopped by to tell you we've landed on Beaumonde. So if you've got appointments to keep — now's the time to keep them."

She quirked an eyebrow at him, ghost of a smile playing at her lips. "You could have told me that over the comm."

Nodded, eyebrows raised in some self-deprecating fashion. "Reckon I could've. But I was in —" A shrug. "In the vicinity." Nodded again, then shifted his thumb to point toward the bridge — another meaningless gesture meant to occupy nervous hands. "I'll just leave you now. To your appointments and whatnot."

He was turning to leave, when out of nowhere she reached out and grazed his hand, and in a rush: "I don't have any."

"Come again?"

"Don't have any." A little smile then (the back of her hand over her mouth to block it). "Call it a vacation." A pause and, rushed: "What about you? Jobs?"

He nodded. Whole conversation, thinking back, felt not unlike their wave, later, her at the Training House, him on Serenity. Same awkwardness, same half-smiles. That time she'd been nervous, genuine: the Operative had come into her home. This time her nerves were less explicable. "Fanty and Mingo. Seeing them tomorrow. About some work."

She was biting at her lower lip, her hand still up around her chin. "Oh."

It was another time, like in his bunk, when the conversation could have ended, should have ended, but he couldn't quite let it. In a rush (like those unnecessary words of hers earlier): "Listen. Um. I know a bar. I mean, it's where I'll be seeing the brothers tomorrow, but — if you'd like to get off this boat for a spell, your being on vacation and all, we could —"

"We?" Whatever mumblings came out of his mouth next were surely nonsense, so she kept on. "Will there be pool cues?"

Took him a minute to figure she was joking, and he grinned, full. "None in sight."

"All right, then."

And that was that.

* * *

"You're not going without me."

He looked back at the doctor (whose eyes weren't fixed far away anymore but right on his). Kaylee, face still red, was looking at the boy like he'd grown a third eye. "Simon! You can't do that; you know you can't do that. If you get caught —"

Simon looked at Kaylee (holding her hand; or maybe she was holding his) and then back at Mal. "You can't go without me. You know you can't. This isn't like the last time on Ariel. This isn't just stealing medicine from a hospital. I can't tell you in advance exactly who you'll need to talk to or where you'll need to go. You need me. You know you do."

Look on Kaylee's face'd grown something desperate. "Simon..."

The boy looked back at Kaylee; reached a hand up to stroke her hair. "_Bǎobèi_, you'll take care of River for me, won't you? Here on Serenity, with Zoe."

Felt angry. Didn't want the doctor to come but knew he was right: he needed him, and letting pride get in his way wasn't no way to hold on to her. Cursed Simon in his head for being someone he needed.

"There're things need to be planned, things need to be done over the next few days. For now, I just needed you all to know how I'm lookin' at things. If there's any chance I can do something —" Choked over his words. Swallowed, closed his eyes, and then: "I can't let it pass me by."

* * *

He'd told her a whole mess of things that night he probably hadn't meant to. About how the Alliance'd blown Shadow to bits while he'd been away, because he'd had it in his mind for a spell that he might work his way through school. About how, when they were done, there'd been nothing left of the ranch or the cattle or the hands or his momma. About how it was _after_ that that he'd volunteered for the Independents, where he'd met a career soldier named Zoe Alleyne. About how sometimes he imagined how his momma, wild spirit that she was, must've yelled her wrath to the skies as everything was coming down around her, and how that thought at least made him smile.

And he'd been right. It _did_ feel good, this _telling_, like he'd wanted to tell and sometimes even started to tell times before. She sat beside him and watched him and soaked it all in. And she laughed with his joy and frowned with his pain, and once or twice she touched his hand.

It wasn't till some time later, after she'd gone (_gone_, _gone_), that he realized that while he'd been telling her so much, she hadn't told him a thing.

Thought over it more than he cared to admit in the time she was away (trying to bring together all the tools he needed to hate her). And the thing he came back to, over and over, the only thing that made a lick of sense to him, was about the wanting, the wanting to give that he felt so powerful. The thing of it was that _it was just him_. She didn't feel it. She didn't love him back. Reckoned she was right not to. He wasn't a soul much deserved it.


	10. Chapter Nine

**Chapter Nine**

All in all, she'd had to tell him four times that she didn't want him. It was four times before he finally let it set in, before he started to feel the anger.

Probably took so many times of telling because, contrary to what Simon said, he _did_ have hope. Not just hope: he had joy. It was a little-known fact that joy was an important part of the life of Malcolm Reynolds. He looked for them little bits of happiness that he could latch onto to make the rest of it worthwhile. Such was probably the reason Wash's passing'd hit him so hard. Wash'd gone, and it was like the joy went out of Serenity.

He reckoned it was that — his searching for joy — that made it so gorram easy for him, after that night with her, to fall into the trap he'd been careful to ward off since she came on his boat: he let himself get comfortable, because with the comfort came, for a little while, joy. That night, she'd listened to him, and he'd let himself believe her listening'd meant more than it did, because believing that little thing brought him joy.

What had she whispered to him, all that time ago, about practicing her trade? "You would never feel as though an advance would be unwelcome. A Companion's goal is to make every client feel as though he's special to her." May have been she hadn't meant to — may have been she hadn't known how _not_ to — but she'd seduced him, but good. And he'd been the fool who took her for earnest.

The comfort after that night on Beaumonde — too much comfort — had come out in different ways that he'd later felt shame in recollecting. Unguarded smiles thrown her way. Her name on his lips more often than was normal. Jokes in the mess over his gun-cleaning habits. The freedom he felt at visiting her shuttle, sitting on her sofa. The speed of his reply when she'd asked him to help Nandi and her girls. "You keep your money. Won't be needing no payment."

He liked to think of himself as a man who didn't walk in the same fire twice. Felt no small measure of pride at that fact, and at times told it to himself aloud: Mal Reynolds? he'd say to his mirror (feeling only a mite silly). He ain't a man to walk in the same fire twice.

Maybe he wasn't, most times; but he walked in her fire four times before he was done. Made her tell him that little thing four times. Each time she did it by refusing to let him _give_.

The first time was that visit to her shuttle, him still feeling too comfortable. Basking in the glow of her gun banter in the galley (a thing she seemed to have a penchant for; later he thought cruelly that any whore would), he'd done things he wouldn't've thought to before. Admitted he'd been listening to her, outside her shuttle. Took a seat on her sofa, feeling free and easy. Told her, as plain as he could, that this thing she was asking he was doing _for her_, doing as a gift.

Might've picked up on the signs, if he'd been looking for them: signs that she realized she'd gone too far, that she'd made him believe she felt something and that, on account of that, she felt guilt.

She had put them out. Sat a little too far away. Voice staid strong when his was soft. Threw out that word she hated to his face: "They're whores, Mal." It wasn't necessary. It stood out on her tongue, unnatural and ugly. It was like to remind him of his place, and hers. The things that stood between them.

But when he didn't see all that, she made it crystal clear: "You will be paid," she'd said, her voice something cold. "I feel it's important we keep ours strictly a business arrangement."

It was a thing must've happened with her clients all the time, he conjured, confusing art for life. Never expected it would happen to him. He'd wondered sometimes, time to time in days and weeks and months that followed, if she felt pity, and then he pushed the wondering away, because he didn't want to know.

When he took Nandi to bed, he did it because she was everything Inara tried her damnedest not to be. She was plain where Inara was cryptic. She was crass where Inara was proper. She was casual where Inara was stiff. She was intimate where Inara was distant. She was giving, and she took what he offered. She made him feel _rén_. And maybe that was the thing he needed most.

Still, he was thinking about _her_, the things she was and the things she was not, the whole time. And despite how clear she'd tried to make it, despite his anger and his shame, when she'd congratulated him on it the next morning, told him she was glad, he'd managed to feel surprised.

Should've known then it would take more than once.

* * *

He sat at the table in the galley for a time after he'd said his piece, head in his hands. Thinking on all the times they'd had in this space. Thinking on what he'd give to have a few more of them times, didn't matter good or bad.

"She's scared. She never thought she would be, when the time came."

He took a deep breath. "That so? Well, she ain't the only one. But I guess you know that, don't you?"

"She's scared for you."

Closed his eyes, wished she'd leave. "Ain't that a peach. You got any useful thoughts in that brain of yours? 'Cause if not, I've got a load of 'em in mine." Tilted his head toward the girl and caught sight of her shrug as she looked up at the ceiling. "All right, then. If that's —"

"She's thinking about the Guild. About how they know."

He didn't respond for a time, just looked at her, trying to puzzle out what she meant. "Know?"

But the look on her face, a peculiar little smile, told him she was somewhere else already. She looked down from the ceiling, toward something in her hand, eyes wide and wondering, still with the smile; took two long strides toward him, holding out a few rumpled pages. "I took these out of the Shepherd's symbol, and I thought they turned to paper. But then today I looked again, and I realized the symbol was still there." She watched the pages for a few seconds, like they amazed her, and then dropped them to the table in front of him. "I was going to take them to her. But you need them more."

Watched her walk out and then looked down at the pages in front of him. It was the Book of Job.

* * *

The second time he made her tell him, they were on the catwalk, and Nandi was dead.

They'd stood in silence for a time, far enough away not to be touching, both feeling grief, both holding it in. She was the one who brought it up — his time with Nandi. He should've read it for what it was but didn't. Maybe didn't want to.

If Nandi's death had shown him anything, it was that she'd been right in what she'd said before: time was a thief. Truest of truths. And so he'd tried to tell her something from inside of him even though she'd made it so plain she didn't want to hear.

Thing of it was, he didn't expect anything back. Meant what he said when he said he wasn't looking for anything. All he wanted was to give her this little thing.

But when he'd tried, she'd taken the world out from under his feet. She'd told him she was leaving.

* * *

On the bridge, and he'd been waiting for the young girl on the other end of the wave to fetch House Madrassa's Priestess for what felt like ages. The regal woman who finally appeared was the same as he'd talked to some years before, same one who'd been trying to track down his resident Companion when she first came aboard.

She fixed him with a critical gaze. "Captain Reynolds. If I recall correctly, you and I have spoken before, about Inara. Though I should note that your contacting me directly is highly improper, given the circumstances."

He frowned. "What circumstances, precisely?"

"The Guild's withdrawal of trust from your ship in the wake of your broadwave." A beat. "Did Inara not tell you?"

He ran a nervous hand through his hair. Mumbled: "She don't tell me much, apparently."

She looked unimpressed. "Why have you waved me, Captain Reynolds?"

Took a deep breath, and then it poured out, faster and more desperate than he meant it to. "She's sick. I've got some reason to believe you may know something about that. That you may be able to help."

The woman didn't look surprised. "I may know something. But there's very little that I can do for you, given your current status with the Guild. In fact, I'll be required to report that I've spoken to you as soon as we end this communication."

He clenched his fists, trying to hold back his temper. "I'm not askin' for much. Just need information."

"Is there a reason you can't simply ask Inara? Or that she hasn't contacted us directly, for that matter?"

His voice something close to a growl: "Maybe I'm not makin' myself clear. She's _dying_."

The woman let out a soft sigh, shoulders falling. "I can give you a name, but that's the extent of my knowledge, I'm afraid. You should try to locate Hiresh Chaudhury. He's a doctor on Ariel whom she saw regularly. He can tell you more than I can." She paused and studied him with that same piercing gaze he recalled from the time before, but her face had softened, along with her voice: "Captain Reynolds —" She paused, like she was trying to find the right words. "I take your calling to indicate that Inara is in breach of her contract."

Couldn't quite process what she was suggesting right then, so he just shook his head. "I can't say I know what that means."

Her eyes dropped, like she was thinking, and then she shook her head. "Never mind. It's probably best that you not tell me. Just know —" Her eyes found his. "Know that I'm sorry. She means a great deal to us as well."

* * *

Didn't know why he couldn't just let it go, but he couldn't, and a few days after she'd told him she was leaving, there he was, sitting on her sofa, waiting for her to come back from some time spent with River.

He'd been avoiding her, in the week since Nandi'd passed and Serenity'd left Deadwood. Reckoned she'd been avoiding him, too.

When she came in, he was sitting, elbows propped on his knees, hands clasped together. She sighed but didn't seem much surprised to see him. Moved into the room with her usual grace and busied herself around him, straightening the tea set that sat on the table in front of him (leftover, surely, from time spent with Kaylee).

He watched her move for a time, waiting for her to look at him, scold him for being in her space. She didn't, and silence surrounded them for an endless spell. Finally, he spoke, his voice solemn, his eyes turned down: "You could at least tell me why you're leaving." A pause, and when she didn't say anything, didn't even look at him, he kept on, like to fill the void, his voice lower still. "Way I see it, maybe you owe me that." A beat. "Inara."

She did look up from her tidying at that: lifted her chin and found his eyes, and then pulled herself up straight. Held her arms tight across her chest, like she was hugging herself, and watched him, her face sad.

Took a long time to answer. When she did, it wasn't much of an answer at all. "We all deal with death in our own ways, Mal."

He swallowed and nodded, chewing on that. "So this is about Nandi." He let out a harsh laugh. "What's that mean, then? You deal with death by running?"

A spell of silence — her eyes had gone wide at first but then softened, and when she spoke, her voice was just a whisper. "Something like that, I suppose."

"So, what? You blame me? That what this is about?"

She shook her head. "No. I don't blame you." A pause. "But _you_ do. I know you, Mal. You take on the weight of the world. You're going to feel that Nandi's death was your fault for the rest of your life." She caught his eyes and held them, like what she was saying was something important, something she needed him to understand. "But you can only be responsible for so much."

And then, there he was, laying his soul bare, putting out that truthsomeness she'd tried to block before. Choking over the words, barely there, something between a question and a statement: "So you don't trust me to take care of you?"

Her eyes went wide; she watched him for a long moment, mouth half-open, like in shock. Her chin quivered just so much. "I —" A beat. "I —"

He nodded, urging her on. He felt tired; felt worn. But he needed to hear whatever she was about to lay on him. His voice full of resignation: "You..."

Lashes lowered to her cheeks for a moment and she took a few deep breaths; and when she opened her eyes again, they shone a bit, but it was like she'd regained some of her calm, her serenity. "I trust you to try." Taking a step close, she laid a hand on his shoulder (so few times she'd ever touched him). She looked him in the eye, her eyes pleading with him, and she told him a third time: "But, Mal — I don't _want_ that."

Felt like the wind'd been knocked out of him as her hand dropped from her shoulder. There it was, after all that: just four little words. Closed his eyes and took a deep, labored breath. Then opened them (trying to ignore that plaintive look in hers), and stood, wiping his hands against his pant legs. "Reckon I don't much blame you," he managed, voice a mumble at best. "Probably wouldn't want that, myself." And then he walked out without looking back.

* * *

Next few hours, while she still slept, he spent on the bridge, scanning the Cortex for news and mapping a route to the Core. To Ariel. Jumped a bit at the small tap at the hatch; swinging his chair around, he saw his mechanic, looking hesitant and hopeful at once. "'Nara's woken back up. Thought — just thought you might like to give it another try."

Didn't say anything, just nodded and stood; but he gave her shoulder a squeeze on the way out, and she smiled.

Took no time to get down the infirmary; took the metal stairs two at a time. Took something longer to get beyond the stairs, and for a while he stood at the bottom and watched through the room's windows (same windows he remembered watching her through the other way around, when he told Simon to dope the Reaver victim).

Couldn't hear inside from the distance, but saw: Zoe was sitting beside her, facing toward him, holding the Companion's right hand in both of hers. Her lips were moving, and she was smiling, like she was telling her something that sat fond with her. Thought he saw Wash's name on her lips a few times but couldn't be sure. The two of them had barely mentioned him in the same space since he died. Talked _around_ it sometimes, and just knew, others, that each was thinking on it. But the _name_: he'd made sure to stay away from it, and she had too. But now, here she was, talking about him like it was something she wanted, something she _needed_. She pulled one hand up for a second; swiped at something he couldn't see on her cheek. The Companion, lying on the hospital table, still wrapped in her blanket, was smiling, her eyes mostly closed, just taking in Zoe's words.

He sucked in a breath. "You're wrong about one thing, you know."

Behind him, the doctor started, surprised. Regaining his composure: "How did you know I was here?"

Gestured at the window in front of him (his eyes still fixed on the Companion and his first mate through it). "Reflection."

The image in the glass gave a careful nod. "And just what is it I'm wrong about?"

"About her. She doesn't love me." A beat. "But I reckon that's as it should be. I reckon that's all right by me."

Just then his first mate happened to raise her eyes and caught sight of him — of both of them, he conjured. Surprise, at first, there on her face, and then it melted into something like relief, and she smiled. He pulled a half-smile — something he hoped was just enough contrite — and, forgetting the doctor at his back, held up his hand to give a small wave. Something like an apology. Her smile widened, just a hair, and she nodded once, brief. Something like an acceptance.

Then Zoe was standing; squeezed the patient's hand and leaned over to whisper something to her, and now the woman on the table was turning her head and saw him for the first time — she wasn't smiling, just _wondering_, from the look of it. Another little wave, to her, and a half shrug, and finally he got his feet moving till he was standing in the doorway and Zoe was moving past him.

As she passed, she leaned in just enough. Under her breath: "Good decision, Sir." As if he could've made any other.

* * *

The last time she said no, it was a gesture, no more. Outside of the infirmary, he'd reached out to touch her split lip. And she had pulled back.

He watched her walk away, and it was then that the anger started. Some at her. Mostly at himself. It stayed with him a long time, maybe until those frantic moments when he ran to the infirmary with her, heavy in his arms. Maybe it didn't go away, even then.

Four times she told him she didn't want him. Somewhere in that time, he learned his lesson. (_I suppose he'd know by what you said when he asked you to stay_.) And so he never asked her to stay, because that was one question he didn't want an answer to.

* * *

_Translations_  
rén: 'human'


	11. Chapter Ten

**Chapter Ten**

He didn't know how Simon Tam had suddenly taken the role of make-shift confessor (even if his confessions were mostly of the angry kind). He conjured it was out of desperation, Wash being gone.

But even Wash: why was it he'd first told Wash she was leaving? He reckoned that had been out of desperation, too. Needed somebody to talk to, and there weren't too many choices aboard. Fact of the matter was, Wash was the perfect combination of disrespectful and honest.

He supposed telling the man must've been on his mind for some time. Not long after the run-in with Sanda, he'd taken to coming to the bridge more and more when Wash was alone. Course, it sometimes took some doing to figure _that_ out: it'd only taken one time of walking in on Wash and his first mate _in flagrante_ (which seemed to happen most often after narrow escapes) to know he never wanted to see that again (thought his exact words had been something along the lines of, "Oh, sweet Jesus, there are some things I _don't_ need to know"). And though he reckoned Zoe was more careful since that first run-in, he was just as happy to turn a blind eye and be careful for the both of them. After all (and he _remembered thinking this_, though now it made him pained to think back): there're no guarantees in this world.

But after Sanda, if he noticed Zoe in the galley alone, or doing pull-ups in the cargo bay, he'd often find himself wandering up to the bridge to sit with his pilot awhile.

Didn't take too many such visits for Wash to notice. He cleared his throat conspicuously first time he brought it up. "Mal, not that I don't enjoy these — eh, special moments of ours — they're not creepifying _in the least_ — but I'm beginning to wonder if there's something particular on your mind."

There was quiet for a time.

"Of course, if you don't want to tell me, I _completely_ —"

"Inara's leaving."

Wash didn't respond right away, and when he did, weren't much: "I see."

His eyes narrowed. "What do you mean, you see?"

"What do _you_ mean, what do I mean? I mean, I see." Mocking up an accent of the highfalutin variety: "'I comprehend what you are trying to tell me, good my lord.'"

Crossed his arms over his chest. "And just what am I tryin' t' tell you?"

Wash drew a long face. "That you're _sad_."

"I didn't say that. You said that. Puttin' words in my mouth." Looked resolutely out the screen, into the black. "Look, I changed my mind. Don't want to talk about it."

Wash waved his arms in truce. "Okay, okay, no, you're right. _I_ said that you were sad. It's not at all true. _Just_ something I said. Let's keep talking about it." A beat. "Can I tell Zoe?"

Threw the man a glare. "No. Just forget I said anything, and don't tell Zoe. 'Nara wants to tell folks herself."

Wash's eyes widened melodramatically: "You want me to hide something from my beloved? I am shocked. Shocked. Well you'd better hope she doesn't find out that I knew anything or I'll get my butt kicked. Or maybe I'll get spanked." Tilted his head, as if he were thinking on it. "I hope I get spanked."

"Don't tell me things like that! I don't wanna hear things like that!" Almost smiling in spite of himself, but as a few minutes slipped by in silence, his smile fell. Then, scrubbing a hand through his hair: "You don't so much seem too surprised." Not that he should've been. He'd barely exchanged words with the Companion since their conversation in the shuttle, when he'd laid himself out. Those he had said were spoken in anger; he'd snapped at her and mocked her and goaded her. Would've been hard for Wash not to notice.

The pilot shrugged, and for the first time since the conversation started, there was no humor in his voice. "I guess I'm not. After all, Mal — and please, hear this the right way — Mal, why would she stay? You've worked for years to make sure she knew there was nothing here for her."

Wasn't sure if he heard him the right way or not, but, either way, he didn't have much to say to that.

* * *

He stood in the doorway of the infirmary, thumbs tucked in his pockets, eyes down, like he was waiting to be judged. Stood like that for a few moments after Zoe was gone: her still not smiling, but neither was he. Kept his chin bowed, eyes off hers. "Mind if I come in?"

"No." She tried to say it calm, but it was a little high-pitched at the same time, like there was another note in there, like maybe she wanted him here after all.

And so he did go in; went and sat in the chair Zoe'd been in, leaned over, crimson-shirted elbows resting on khaki-clad knees, hands together like in prayer. Couldn't quite look at her face, not just yet, so he occupied himself looking at her hand, the one Zoe'd been holding. It was small; long, delicate fingers, bent just slightly as they rested on the blanket, pale against the polish on the nails (chipped, he noticed; something else about her, wearing out).

Wasn't sure quite how long they sat there, her lying back in the hospital bed, him staring at the narrow joints of her fingers, his own hands between his knees (left one curled around something sharp, metal biting into his skin; right one curled around left). Kept trying to make himself speak, and every now and then he'd suck in a breath like to start — but nothing seemed quite right, quite enough, so he'd let the breath back out, slow.

It was her that broke the quiet, finally.

"Mal."

He drew his eyes up her, slow, till they were fixed on the pillow under her head, at the place just near where her cheek met the fabric. Brow furrowed, he concentrated on the interplay of colors: the white of the cotton, the pink of her cheek, the black of her hair.

"Mal."

He couldn't avoid it any more. Pulled his eyes up that final tiny bit till he was looking in hers. And they weren't angry at him, or disappointed in him, like he'd feared. Wished they had been, either of those, because then they wouldn't be _this_, this thing that was something maybe even a little worse. They were serene; resigned.

"Mal," she said, a third time, like she wanted the feel of it on her tongue. The thought stirred something in him, a memory — made him want to say her name, scream it (most of the times in his life her name had come off his lips — though it wasn't many, regardless of how you counted them — it'd been muffled into his pillow at night, and for that he was ashamed). But her saying his name, soft like this, seemed good if not quite right. But what she said next wasn't good at all. "I didn't want you to find out this way."

He swallowed and tore his eyes away from her again, out those panes of glass he'd just been looking in through. When he spoke, his voice was rough. "No? And how'd you want me to find out? A shiny invitation to your wake from the Training House?"

He heard her sigh. Softly, almost to herself: "At least then you wouldn't've blamed yourself." And then, voice stronger: "But, no. What I mean to say —" A long pause. "— is that I'm _sorry_ you found out this way. Simon told me. About how you brought me here." A beat. "I know you, Mal. You take on the weight of the world. But I don't want you _ever_, _ever_ to feel responsible for this. Whatever else this is, Mal, it is not your fault."

Her saying didn't make much difference, but he nodded anyway, still looking out those windows. Didn't know for certain if she was still looking at him to see.

And then, more silence, and his eyes were back down in front of him, to the edge of the infirmary table, where his finger absently traced patterns on the sheet just below where her hand still rested.

He pulled in a breath, and this time he did speak.

"Don't hate you, you know."

"I never thought you did."

* * *

Took him a few days after that bit of truth to go back to the bridge, excepting for perfunctory checks. But then he finally did go back, because, truth be told, Wash was the only person on this boat who didn't hold his tongue, and sometimes a man needed to be around folks willing to speak plain to him.

He'd been sitting just a few minutes when his pilot piped up. "You know, at the risk of stating the blindingly obvious, it doesn't have to be this way."

He looked up from the buttons and screens in front of him. "What?"

"You could just tell her. Tell her you want her to stay."

Shook his head. "Already did. In a manner."

"What kind of manner?"

He shrugged. "Some sort of manner."

Wash mouth fell open. "Oh, please. You may think you did, but I'll bet you didn't tell her anything. If you had, you wouldn't be sitting here talking to me. And you know what that means? It means you've got nobody to blame but yourself, my friend. You know, people ask me about you, and I say, 'Who, Mal Reynolds? He's a _shǎguā_.' And _this_ is _why_ I say this."

With one eyebrow raised, deadpan: "You don't know any people."

The pilot flapped his hands a little bit, mock-emphasizing his point. "But if I _did_, this is what I would say to them. Without a doubt. 'Mal Reynolds? He's a _shǎguā_.' This is what I would say."

"Guess it's a good thing, then. Your not knowing any people, I mean."

Wash grinned. "For you, yes. For me, too. Have you seen that fox I'm married to? We knew too many people, she'd be gone like —" Snapped for effect — "_That_." A beat. "Inara, though. There's a woman who _knows_ people. Lots and lots of people. But she's still here. You ever wonder why?"

He sighed. "All the time."

* * *

It was Wash he was thinking on then, in the infirmary, all those months after the man had died. Sitting there beside her (dying), he was thinking on Wash (dead), and all the decisions he might've made, if he'd known he might not have more time. At some point, his hand had traveled up a touch, and it wasn't the white sheet he was tracing little patterns on but the back of her hand. Didn't much realize it until she turned it over, palm up, and latched onto his finger with one of hers.

Stared at those two linked fingers for a time. Just a small gesture, but he could count on one hand number of times he'd touched her. She'd touch him a few times with hands meant to teach or comfort. (He thought about that hand on his shoulder, when she told him she didn't want him to take care of her; another thing that would've seemed so _different_ if he'd known.) But him touching her, just to touch her, had been something rare. Once, on accident, when he'd told her to run on Whitefall. Then the next time he could think of was that time he'd reached for her lip; but she'd pulled away. And then, once — but some things best not to dwell on.

It was such a little thing, that looping of fingers. But it was so different, so new. He felt her hand relax like she'd drifted off, and he ran a thumb over a fragile-looking knuckle. And then, after some time, he choked out a few more words: "It ain't fair, you know."

Cut a glance up toward her, where (cheek still resting on the pillow, hair pooled around her) her eyes were closed. But as he watched, they fluttered a bit and she looked at him, concern on her face. Her voice was scratched. "Fair?"

"You've —" His voice broke. "You've known just about all about me from the start, and you kept this thing — this _thing_ so — _so_ —" Shook his head. "What I mean to say is there're things I'd've done. Things I wouldn't've done. Things I'd've understood —"

She opened her hand and put her fingers through his; squeezed, and all he could do was watch the way her skin looked against his, smooth and soft next to his, chafed and worn. "But that's part of the point, Mal. I wouldn't've wanted you to do _anything_ differently. I never wanted this to be who I was. And it hasn't been, here. I'm grateful to you for that." A pause, then distantly: "And after all, who really understands anyone?"

Zoe and Wash. They did. Had to believe to himself they did. And maybe all because of Wash, because he'd been willing to risk something, to stake something of himself on it. But that was his one little hand-hold after Miranda, what he used to tell himself that it — _being here_ — was worth it. Zoe and Wash: for a time, they'd had something. He closed his eyes. "That don't make it fair. 'Cause that's what it's all about. The trying to understand."

* * *

And then she'd been gone. Dropped her off at the Training House; stood off to the side, browncoat billowing in the wind, while she said goodbye to the others. In the end they barely said a word between them.

He made his way back to Serenity as fast as he could without drawing too much attention. Couldn't escape everyone, though. The preacher found him in the galley; told him he was leaving, before he forgot himself. And Zoe found him in his bunk; asked him where they should point the boat.

The next few days, he floated around Serenity in a daze, and she was everywhere, _everywhere_. In the cargo hold, and he saw her dancing. In the galley, and he saw her laughing. In her shuttle, and he saw her rejection.

He was sitting outside the infirmary, in the same yellow chair he'd much later sat in while waiting for Simon, when Wash found him. Man came over, stood in front of him, hands buried in the pockets of his khakis, floral-print shirt even more colorful than usual. "Listen, Mal." A beat. "I'm sorry it turned out this way."

Looked down at the arm of the chair and picked idly at a loose thread. "Nothing for you to be sorry on. Like you said before, not a soul to blame but myself. It's not why you think, though." He took a deep breath. "Wasn't lying. I did... try. She left 'cause I tried to tell her the truth."

Wash sighed and sat himself down on the sofa beside him. "You sure about that?"

And they sat for a while, while Serenity just went _forward_, the only direction he conjured any of them knew. Times like this Zoe's marrying Wash made such complete and perfect sense that he could trick himself for a second into thinking the 'Verse had some sort of order to it, that there was a God after all. Finally, the man sucked in a breath, readying himself to speak. Voice came out uncertain but tinged with hope. "Mal, you know — there's nothing wrong with trying to be happy. Sometimes, when you try to make yourself happy, you make someone else happy too."

* * *

Another long spell of silence — just listening to her breath, watching his hand holding on to hers, one blending into the other — and he wondered if she'd fallen asleep.

And then, her voice, low and soft and tentative. "Mal?"

Turned his eyes up to her face, and he was distracted once again by the thinness and the paleness and the dark circles. "Hmm?"

"Have I ever told you... have I ever told you that my mother used to sing to me? When I was afraid?"

Took him a moment to understand what he'd heard. And then shock, awe, wonder that she was telling him this, this personal thing, this private thing, this thing about _her_, and he was smiling, really and truly smiling, for the first time in as long as he could remember. "Don't tell me you're trying to get me to serenade you, woman." And then _she_ was smiling, too — a smile real, true — and she was biting her lip a little bit, bashful, lashes falling down to those dark, dark rings under her eyes. He cleared his throat a bit, and his voice softened. "You know, I think I would've remembered you telling me a thing like that." A beat. "Let's just say you have now."

He looked down at his left hand, the one not holding hers, and next thing he knew he was talking in a hurry. "I want you to hold on to somethin' for me. I wore this all during the war. Put it away afterward. Put a lot away afterward, all the things that didn't seem to've done me much good. But, thinkin' now, I'm —" He swallowed. "I'm alive, and that's something. Somethin' maybe I don't think on enough. So I thought —" Opened his left hand, and the chain of the silver cross fell down out of it, catching the light.

The little smile fell from her face, and her forehead wrinkled. "Mal, I don't want you to —"

And then he did say her name, didn't want to stop saying it. "Inara. Dammit, Inara, all I'm asking is for you to keep it. Not to believe in it — prob'ly don't myself — just to keep it."

Voice just a whisper: "Mal." A beat, and her voice low, like she was trying to explain to him something painful (she gave his hand a small squeeze). "Mal, I'm not fighting anymore."

Brought him back to that thing he'd said a long time hence, that thing he'd thought of more often than he should've: _I suppose he'd know by what you said when he asked you to stay_. He hadn't asked before. Hadn't wanted to find out what she'd say. But this time, this time when it was unfair, when it was impossible, he did. Turned the hand he was holding over, palm up, and dropped the bit of metal into it; then closed it around it tight. And her hand was shaking, just like Simon'd said.

Her hand was shaking, and her expression was mixed sad and afraid (something like a tear at the corner of her eye). So he held the cross in her hand, and held her hand tight, keeping it still as best he could, like he could hold back her sickness, her _dying_, through sheer force of will. His voice was low but fierce. "Don't you _dare_, Inara. Don't you dare stop fighting."

Then Simon was there, and he was saying something to them that Mal couldn't quite understand, and she was nodding, and then the boy was filling a syringe and taking hold of her IV, and she was holding onto his hand, tight (or he was holding hers), even though she was looking at the doctor.

"Simon?" Her voice sudden and sharp in the bright white room. He was holding the syringe in the feed of the IV but when she said his name he stopped, looked down at her. Her eyes held mischief; sparkled bright enough almost to hide the rings under them. And when she spoke, she was back to that board in her room he'd spied earlier in the day, and she was making her move in a battle she'd been waging inside for a long time, since before he knew it was even happening. "C5-knight to a6." And then she smiled. "Checkmate."

The boy's mouth dropped open a bit, jaw quivering just so much, and he was blinking fast, like to keep them from seeing his tears. After a few moments he regained his composure, and his lips curled into a ghost of a smile as he gave the slightest nod of his head. "Checkmate."

When the doctor pushed the plunger, he was still in that chair, still holding her hand, his head down close to hers. As she fell asleep, he was whispering, voice rough, not quite a tune but not quite just speech, half-remembered lines from the Earth-That-Was music that his momma'd played all them years before on Shadow. (_Some day, when I'm awfully low, when the world is cold, I will feel a glow just thinking of you_.)

As her hand relaxed and fell out of his, it seemed like she was smiling.

* * *

_Translations_  
shǎguā: 'idiot', literally 'stupid melon'


	12. Chapter Eleven

**Chapter Eleven**

Once she'd lost consciousness, they'd moved her, together, from the chair in the middle of the room to the bed at its side, and then he'd sat with her for a long time (after Simon had nodded once and walked out), taking her in with his eyes. If he let his mind wander a bit, he could pretend she'd just fallen asleep, that any second her eyelids would flutter open and she'd catch him watching (and he'd look bashfully away, hoping she couldn't see in his face what he'd been thinking).

He'd seen her asleep just one time before. He'd been out on the bridge, just sitting, late one night (not that night and day stood much apart in the black), and then she'd been there, a shawl pulled tight around her shoulders. She couldn't sleep, she'd said. Something about the day (an anniversary of something bad, he'd figured — and he hadn't asked of _what_, but it was another little something he filed away to think on), and her thoughts were keeping her up. He hadn't minded the company — promised himself he wouldn't pick a fight — so she'd sat in the chair to his left, watching the black, till she'd fallen asleep, cheek nuzzled into the back of the chair, body curled slightly toward him. And, not well knowing how to wake her up — should he say her name? touch her shoulder? none of that seemed right — he'd let her stay that way, and he'd watched her.

Saying her name'd seemed a thing that was hard, then. Wished now waking her up was as easy as just that.

He stood finally, when the movement of her chest, up and down, up and down, became a sight more than he could bear; reached a hand toward her cheek, like to touch her, but then thought better of it, pulled it back, turned, and left the room.

"You didn't tell her."

Wasn't a question; it was an accusation. And it came from the doctor sitting in the chair across from the infirmary's door.

He fixed him with a glare and kept walking, past him, toward the engine room. "Tell her what?"

Simon followed. "You didn't tell her we were going to the Core."

Taking the stairs up the catwalk, two at a time: "Don't see why it's any concern of yours."

Simon followed him through the back hall, his voice loud, now, demanding: "You didn't tell her because you knew she wouldn't want you to."

Something in him snapped, and when his words came out his voice was savage: "If you're so gorram worried about it, go and wake her back up!"

And then he was face to face with Kaylee, standing in front of him in the engine room (Simon in the doorway behind), her mouth open, her eyes wide.

* * *

She was about the only person could make him feel guilty with a single _look_, his Kaylee was. Hell, she may've been about the only person could make him feel guilty _at all_. But that look of hers: all the laughter would go out of her face, and her eyes would go moon-wide, and he'd know he'd disappointed her. He could take just about anybody's disappointment but hers. He figured it was because, of all of them, she was the only one who still seemed surprised when it happened.

Now, his mind took him back to one such time. Hadn't been that long since they'd dropped her off at the Training House: a few weeks, at most. The preacher was still with them, but it wouldn't be long till he was gone, too. Somehow, that didn't bother him so much.

Haven was dry and dusty and worn, but it was warm and familiar, too. Serenity'd be on Haven plenty, Mal figured, to stop and take her rest for a time. And, even if she weren't, even if they never saw the man again, it seemed like a place where the preacher belonged. It was a good place, and the Shepherd deserved a good place.

Inara's world was near opposite. It was lush and green with lakes and mountains, the Training House perched high up on one of them, all gold and glitter. It wasn't no place for the likes of Serenity. And if that was the kind of place where she belonged, she wasn't for the likes of Serenity, either. Never had been; he'd just forgotten that for a spell.

The weeks since they'd left her had been low. The showdown in the wreckage of Sturges had left them all uneasy. They'd done a couple low-profile jobs since then but were mostly sitting quiet. Safer that way. But without work, he'd been thinking a mite too much. A man could go crazy alone with his thoughts.

When Kaylee'd found him, those few weeks in from her leaving, he'd been leaning against the door of her shuttle (_the_ shuttle, Shuttle Number One: wasn't hers no more), surveying what was left of it. Anyone asked, he'd've told them he was just trying to glean how much storage space he could make of it. And that was true, mostly.

Most of her things she'd cleared away, excepting some odds and ends (felt about then like he'd like to throw them all out in the black, to clear her from his mind and his boat). Her red curtains and hangings all gone, the walls and ceiling were just plain metal sheeting again. A blessing and a curse: hard to imagine her work happening here, now; but also hard to imagine her here at all.

He reckoned he wouldn't've been so mean to his mechanic if she hadn't snuck up on him. Or maybe if she'd asked him what he was doing there (he would've muttered something about storage space, and they'd've been done with it) instead of _presuming_. But she'd done both of them things at once.

Her tone of voice was hopeful, helpful, like she was just trying to cheer him up. "'Member when she first came on board, Cap?" He'd started at bit, surprised to be caught; didn't turn toward her though. "There you were, sayin' you'd never, ever take a renter. Guess she musta said somethin' right."

Closed his eyes, breathing deep to try to keep his temper. Spoke through gritted teeth: "I needed the coin. Ain't you the one always complaining that we don't have parts you need?"

Either she didn't hear the menace in his tone, or she ignored it. (Or maybe she just thought better of him than he deserved.) Her voice now was a bit more hopeful, though more hesitant, too. Speaking slow: "You know, Cap, Wash says we're going pretty near the Training House on our next run. We could always stop by. I'm sure 'Nara'd like to —"

And then he couldn't hold it in any more. His voice nearing a snarl: "She don't want no part of my boat, and I sure as _hell_ don't want no part of her. Far as I'm concerned, Serenity ain't never gonna lay eyes on her again, you understand? And I don't want to ever hear mention of her again."

Kept his eyes on the inside of the shuttle; didn't look back at her. Couldn't bear to see the disappointment and hurt that would've been in her eyes when she turned and ran away.

* * *

Now, he tried his best to ignore that look, that _Kaylee_ look. If the girl didn't realize by now that the world could hurt her, that her _people_ could hurt her, it sure wasn't his job to hide it from her. "Kaylee, I want you to tell me what Serenity needs by way of supplies. What would it take to keep her running for, say, six months?"

She swallowed (swallowed down that look of hers in the process) and shuffled her feet, like she was a mite nervous. "Six months? Aw, Cap, I couldn't tell you for sure." She shrugged. "She just _tells_ me when she needs things, you know?"

"No, I don't know. Six months, Kaylee. And, before that, she needs to be able to get us in close enough to Ariel so we can make it in the shuttle before she gets the hell out of Dodge."

She nodded, took a deep breath, and it was back to business, back to her girl. "Rush job outta Ariel, and then six months, no problems? Well, we should re-brace the extenders, right off. Motivator could use a tune-up if you're wanting to get in and out of the Core quick, and we should flush out the primary artery. And probably we should get a new pin-lock and ret couple, just in case."

Caught a word sounded familiar and held onto it, desperate: "Hold on, hold on. Pin-lock. Thought we just replaced that."

The look on her face was apologetic, and so was her voice: "We did, right after Miranda. But Cap, things just ain't meant to last forever..."

He closed his eyes and swallowed. "Well, I can't do all that. Don't have near enough coin, nowhere near. Tell me what she _has_ to have done, Kaylee."

Behind him, the doctor's voice (he'd forgotten he was even there, but, sure enough, there he was, leaning against the doorway, with his stupid sweater and his fancy hair): "Mal —"

A growl: "Not now." To her: "Kaylee, tell me."

"Mal."

"Can't you see I'm kind of busy here?"

The boy drew a sigh. "Mal, you don't need to worry about money. There's plenty."

Kaylee's eyes went wide again, and he swung his head around to follow her gaze. "And just how do you figure that?"

Simon just watched him. "Have you ever asked Inara how much she earns, Mal?"

(Behind him, he heard Kaylee's voice, just audible, startled and uncertain and maybe a mite hurt: "Simon? Have you?")

Teeth gritted, eyes narrowed: "I know enough to know she's outta my price range. Never cared to ask by just how much. She pays the rent. That's enough for me."

"Inara was paid per engagement. But her clients also paid a regular, and quite steep, subscription fee to maintain a place in her registry. They paid that fee in credits into a high-yield account maintained by an Alliance-approved bank on Sihnon."

He smirked at the boy. "Well, thanks for enlightening me on the ins and outs of Companioning for Fun and Profit 101. Now, if you're finished —"

"Mal, Inara is a very wealthy woman."

He let out a frustrated breath and shook his head. "That's just dandy, but if _you_ haven't noticed —" The boy had already turned and was walking back along the hallway he came from, like he expected Mal to follow, and so he did, talking at his back. "If you haven't _noticed_, credits ain't any good here. We can't exactly just walk into a bank on Sihnon to exchange them for coin, can we, now?" A beat. "And even if we could, I wouldn't take her money. I don't want it, and I don't need it." By the time he'd finished, he'd followed Simon clear down to the infirmary (her body, asleep on the bed at the side of the room). The doctor had bent down and was fiddling with a loose floor panel.

Finally pulling it away, the boy eyed him. "Exchanging it won't be necessary. She already has, and I have it all right here."

* * *

In the weeks after she left, he'd come to think more and more he hadn't been so far off the mark in what he'd accused her of before she left. ("I seem to remember a strict policy about servicing my crew," he'd said to her. She'd bristled, snapped at him. "You've heard all you're going to." "Wouldn't broadwave it to the crew, though," he'd replied, and she'd made no move to deny it.) Simon's behavior these days wasn't doing much to change his mind.

Then, in those few weeks since she'd gone, Simon had been fidgety, distracted. Been spending hours with his sister in the infirmary, but that wasn't new. What was new was the time he spent there pacing the floor, without her.

He'd come upon him one day, walking back and forth the length of the infirmary, muttering to himself. Watched him for a spell before speaking. "You got something to be nervous about, Doc?"

The boy started and looked up at him. "No, I —" A beat, and he pulled himself together. "No, of course not. I'm just thinking aloud."

"Well think quiet next time. And just so we're clear: if I ever start thinking you got something to be nervous about, something more than I already know, there's gonna be hell to pay." He turned on his heel and walked up the stairs of the catwalk (just a single glance toward her shuttle).

He'd kept the doctor and his sister on board for a whole mess of reasons, he figured. But not least among them was his fear that, if they left, she'd've gone with them.

But now she was gone. And he wished like hell Simon Tam had gone too.

* * *

Now, standing over where Simon knelt in the infirmary, he thought he might have misheard. "Come again?"

Simon nodded to the space under the panel. "I have it all. Before she left Serenity for the Training House, she converted her credit to platinum — I don't know how — and she left it all with me."

"This —" He'd bent down, was looking through the bags of coin, shaking his head. Voice betraying (couldn't much help it) all his shock and confusion: "Do you know how much this is? This is over a hundred thousand platinum. You can't expect me to believe this all came from —"

Simon, standing now, looking down at him, shook his head, arms crossed. "It didn't. Some of it would have come from her father." He swallowed and looked away from Mal; spoke carefully. "He would have been a client of her mother's. Companions don't expect anything from clients in the event of pregnancy — the Guild is very clear that clients bear no responsibility — but it's not uncommon for — for wealthier patrons, those with a certain social cache, to offer support. To ensure their anonymity."

"Weren't you just telling me how you didn't know anything about Companions?"

"I said I didn't _know_ any Companions, before I met her."

He dropped the coin back under the panel, sudden, like it burned him. Taking a glance at her (sleeping in the corner of the room), he shook his head, stood, and walked out into the lounge. Struck him — hard, in the chest — just how little he knew about her. Just how much Simon knew.

The doctor followed him out of the infirmary (Kaylee standing at the bottom of the stairs, eyes still wide). "Well, Doc, this is all shiny. But like I said before: I won't take her money." A beat, and he narrowed his eyes. "Or is it your money, now? Whoever in hell that there belongs to, I ain't never asked for favors, from her especially, and I'm not about to start now —" (nodding his head toward the infirmary) "— when she can't even tell me yes or no."

The doctor, his hands pushed down in his pockets: "She left it _for_ you, Mal. She told me that it was for Serenity. That in case anything happened to her, it was for Serenity."

Shook his head at that. "No. If she'd meant it for me, she woulda just given it to me."

The boy raised his eyebrows. "Oh, she would've, would she? And what would you have done, then, Mal? Would you have taken what she wanted to give you? Or would you have thrown it back in her face?"

He'd been holding back for days, hating the boy more and more every minute (for everything he knew, everything he was) even as he found himself telling him things he hadn't meant to, things about _her_, things he hadn't told to no one. But now, the crack of his fist connecting with Simon's nose (Kaylee was there, running to him) was just about the most satisfying sound he'd ever heard.

* * *

Mal himself had been on the receiving end of his share of punches, once from Simon himself. Usually he figured, like the doctor must've, that he'd been asking for them. But one punch that had truly surprised him was the one the Shepherd'd dealt him, in the days before Inara'd gone. He'd avoided the man for some time after that, after he announced he was going, too. Avoided him, in fact, for most of the month between her leaving and his. But a few days before he was set to go, he'd found Mal late at night in the galley, sitting at the table over a cup of tea (some vile stuff she'd left in a cupboard), forehead in his hands.

"My, but don't you seem to be deep in thought. Anything you'd care to share?" He started; looked up to see the preacher leaning in the doorway of the galley.

"Not so much, preacher. No offense, of course."

"Oh, none taken, I assure you, Captain." Looked back down at the table. Figured the man had left, until he heard a chair scrape at the opposite end of the table as the Shepherd took a seat. "Captain, you haven't asked for my counsel, but you seem to have been troubled of late — more so, I'd dare say, than usual — and I'd like to offer you a piece of advice. You're a man who _courts_ suffering, Mal, like you need it to breathe." A beat. "But there's no need. My boy, suffering will find you. Have no doubt. It finds us all. Perhaps you should ask yourself if it's time you stop looking for it."

He turned his eyes up toward the man and cracked a wry grin. "Your preaching's bound to draw one hell of a crowd on Haven, Shepherd. You know just how to cheer a fella up."

The holy man let out a laugh. "So I've been told."

They sat in silence for some time before the preacher finally stood. Laid a hand on Mal's shoulder on his way past, pausing. "I've been thinking about something you told me, Mal, not so very long ago. You told me that your word was air, worth nothing to no one and not to be trusted. You may tell yourself that, but I don't believe it. I believe your word means a great deal to you. Use it wisely."

* * *

Kaylee was at his side in an instant, but the boy didn't seem too much perturbed from where he lay on the ground, propped up on his left elbow. (Touched his upper lip with the fingers up his right hand, testing for blood, and nodded with some strange satisfaction, it seemed to Mal, when they came away red.) "I've been waiting for you to do that since yesterday. Do you feel better now?"

He looked down at his fist, still clenched. "Can't say I feel any worse. Might feel even better if I did it again."

The doctor pushed himself to his feet (Kaylee with her arm around his waist), still with a hand to his nose. "So, are you ready to get to work?"

Eyes narrowed: "Were you or were you not just complaining that I didn't ask her permission for this little adventure?"

"Not complaining; just making an observation."

He arched an eyebrow. "That so."

The doctor shrugged. "Certainly. How could you have done anything else, after all? If you'd told her, she would have said no. And then, Mal, I don't think you could have gone. Because you'd've had to tell her you wouldn't."


	13. Chapter Twelve

**Chapter Twelve**

He found Jayne at the entrance to her shuttle. The big man was leaning in the doorway, looking around the room almost (though it wasn't a word he'd ever before used to describe Jayne) thoughtfully.

"So?"

The merc turned toward him and eyed him for a bit; then nodded. "Yeah. I reckon I'll go."

Hands pushed in his pockets, lips pulled into a tight line, he breathed out a sigh of relief and nodded, like to convince himself he'd heard right. It'd been the thing that'd worried him most, in truth. "Can't say I won't be glad to have you along. Even through it all, I conjure I'm a mite better with you than without."

The man to his left smirked. "Aw, hell, Mal. You're gonna make me blush."

He smiled a little despite himself, then took a deep breath, aiming to get to business. "Well, we've got a load to do. I told Wash —" Stopped short and shook his head, muttered to himself. "Jesus, you'd think I could remember."

The merc nodded but didn't look over at him (was still looking into her shuttle). "I've been doin' it, too, past few days. Caught myself wonderin' just yesterday if the Shepherd might wanna lift some weights, like he was right there. It's just all this _dyin'_ —" He stopped short and looked over. "Sorry. Didn't mean that."

Tried his best to ignore that, carrying on with what he'd meant to say: "Zoe. I told Zoe to steer us in for a supply run. And there's a derelict yard I want us to take a look at. Might be able to find a Hornet-class that'd do us good for this." He nodded in the direction Jayne was still looking. "Shuttle's not gonna do it. Serenity'd have to get in too close. She'd be scanned soon as we passed Bellerophon."

The man didn't look over, just gave a nod. "Yeah. Kinda what I figured. What about coin?"

Shook his head. "Won't be a problem."

Jayne cocked an eyebrow. "How's that?"

"It just won't." A beat, and something occurred to him. "'What you figured.' If you _figured_ we'd be picked up for sure trying to take the shuttle in, why'd you decide to come?"

Jayne rolled his eyes over at him. "C'mon, Mal. Weren't no way in hell you weren't gonna come up with a better plan than that." He eyed the man but didn't say nothing for a time, so the gunman shrugged. "Aw, I don't know. I just got to thinkin' about what if it was little Matty in there."

"Your brother?" Couldn't hold back his snort of a laugh, and shot him an amused look.

The big man shuffled a bit. "Or my momma..."

"Your mother?"

"Or Vera..."

"Your gun?"

The merc waggled his eyebrows. "Hell, Vera weren't _just_ my gun, Mal." Then, quick: "You want me to go, or don'tcha? You keep second-guessin' me, I may change my mind. Only point I'm tryin' to make is she's somethin' like family." A beat. "If, you know, your family had in it a real, real hot sister who was a whore." He shrugged and grinned. "You know, family."

* * *

It'd struck him for some time that the Jayne Cobb currently living on his boat, working his jobs, was a Jayne Cobb some ways different than the liar he'd threatened to toss into the black after the Ariel heist.

Or maybe it wasn't so much that Jayne was changing (he remembered too well the man's threats before they went to Miranda, his near refusing to take any part in helping out "strays"). Maybe it was just like the man said: the thing that was changing was the people he called family.

There'd been hints of it all along, he reckoned, little moments of protectiveness or care that you mostly ignored because the bigger picture said something so different. But it wasn't until the Shepherd and the Companion'd left Serenity that he truly took notice, because it was then the man, instead of trying to protect the crew from those set out to hurt them, started trying to protect the crew from its captain, from _him_.

Not so many days after they'd left the preacher on Haven, he'd come into the galley — grunted a hello without looking and went to dish some slop into his bowl. (Heard Wash mutter under his breath: "Well, hello to you, too.") Dropped his bowl to the table with a clatter, pulled out his chair, and set to work on whatever the horrible mess Kaylee'd made this time was, without looking up.

To his left, Jayne's hands came down loud against the table. "I tell you what, I've had just about enough outta you."

Still chewing, he lifted his chin up toward the merc, his eyebrows raised, voice flippant, lilting, mocking. "Oh, have you, now? Let me see if I've got this straight." Jabbed a finger toward him. "_You've_ had enough. Out of _me_."

A single nod, Jayne's eyes narrow and angry. "You're damn right I have. Me and everyone else here, too. They just don't wanna say so. And you wanna know why? Let's see —" (Counting out on the fingers of his left hand.) "You ain't gotten us a decent job in weeks. You spend your time tearin' into us 'bout nothin'. Made me move my weights when they've been in the cargo hold for a gorram _year_. Hell, you been yelling at Kaylee — _yellin'_! At _Kaylee_! Gorramit, I know she can be annoyin', what with her bein' so chipper all the time. But she ain't never done nothing to warrant your bein' an ass to her, an' her chipper is a damned sight better than your bitter."

He took a couple deep breaths, trying to calm himself. "Point is: we put up with all that _pìhuà_ without complainin' — not too much, nohow —" A beat. "I reckon the least you could do is let us eat our gorram dinner in peace."

And, not quite knowing what to say to that, he'd stood up (chair scraping loud against the floor) and, with a fierce look around the table, turned on his heel and walked out of the room.

It didn't spell the end of his anger. No, that would last a good while on: maybe till they buried Wash, and he realized his anger hadn't done the man no good. Or maybe it was with him still.

Hadn't spelled the end of his anger, but it did spell the beginning of a kind of respect toward Jayne that hadn't been there before. Because it hadn't been just himself Jayne'd been thinking on.

* * *

The two of them stood in silence for a bit, both looking into the shuttle. After a spell, Jayne let out a breath; pulled back, like he was about to leave. "I tell you what, though, I can't rightly understand how a woman who left that there Training House barely hangin' on to the clothes on her back has so gorram much in there to trip over."

Funny enough, it was a thing that'd never occurred to him.

The shuttle was maybe a little emptier than it had been when she'd lived in it before — no wall tapestries or carpets or any of them shimmeries that'd hung from the ceiling, and there were fewer bits of furniture and a few other absences he could note (_captures_, that was it: all of her framed captures were gone). But there was more than there _should've_ been. And it wasn't just things she'd picked up in the past few months. The chess board: that'd been here when she'd lived here before. That little elephant. The box of her childhood wonders. And that red sofa.

But hadn't the red sofa been gone when she'd been gone? He pulled to mind an awkward conversation with her when she'd first got back, him sitting with her on the hard cot that the shuttle had had when he'd first bought the Firefly. Tried to call to mind the look of the room, then, but all he could remember was her smell.

But surely he'd noticed it before then. He'd staggered there that time like he had a hundred times since she'd left, times when he needed a refuge (it was just that that time, she'd surprised him by being there). He couldn't remember the look of the room, not precisely — his mind, he reckoned, had been too busy trying to set it right to notice what was wrong — but he could remember the feeling of _emptiness_.

Yes, surely the sofa'd been gone, and all her things with it. A single trunk in the middle of the room was all he remembered to be left. He knew about the trunk, because he'd heard Simon talking to her about it, during one of their waves he'd overheard (their Chinese spoken in the Sihnonese dialect, but he could still make bits of it out). He knew, because he'd gone through it. Pocketed that scarf, and the captures.

He choked a little over his words: "Guess I never much thought about —" But when he looked to his left, Jayne'd already gone.

"She didn't take it with her."

Jumped near a foot. "Bwaa!" Swinging his head toward the doctor: "_Gǒuzǎizi_! Do you have to be gorram _everywhere_?"

Simon shrugged. "I fear you're stuck with me for a while yet." He pushed past Mal, walked right on into the shuttle Mal and Jayne had been just watching, like he owned it or something. Walked over to the shuttle's Cortex and started rummaging through it, like he owned that, too, but kept talking: "The sofa. She didn't take it with her. She told Kaylee she couldn't take it and asked her to keep it for her. Actually, she left a lot of things here, boxes of things. Boxes that were lined all along the wall of the infirmary for months. You told me you'd have to kick me off the ship and find a tidier doctor. Didn't you ever wonder what all of that was?"

He watched Simon at the Cortex from where he leaned against the shuttle's entryway. "S'pose I just assumed it was something or other medical."

Some beats of silence, and then the boy took a breath and turned his head back over his shoulder. "Aren't you curious? About why she'd leave her things?"

He gave his best noncommittal shrug. "I couldn't tell you. I ain't got a clue what goes through her mind."

He narrowed his eyes. "Yes you do. You may not realize it, but you do, because you're just the same. She left these things for the same reason why you told Zoe when we were back in the galley not to come."

"I need Zoe to fly my boat."

The doctor nodded slowly. "Yes, and to _keep_ flying it in case you don't come back. You want Serenity to live on in the world, because it means you'll live on."

Muttered under his breath: "Ain't you the cheerful fellow." Then, swallowing: "So you're saying —"

"They're gifts, all of this. Things she wanted us to have, in case she —" He broke off.

"In case she died. You can say it. In case she died."

"Yes."

The crackle of the ship's intercom, then, and Zoe's voice from the bridge: "Captain, we're landing on Beylix. You want to head up this way now?"

He took a breath. "Guess I'm off to buy myself a boat."

* * *

"Sir?" It was that same night, after Jayne had told him off in the galley. He was laying back in his bunk, staring at that gorram capture, the one he'd taken from the trunk when she left. He stared at it a mite too often, partly to see her, to hear her voice, partly to keep himself from forgetting her words, words that damned him, words he didn't much need the capture to remember: "That man doesn't know what he wants."

He shoved it to the side when he heard Zoe's voice from the hatch above. Cleared his throat. "Something I can do for you?"

Her boots on his ladder, and then she was standing in his bunk, her hands on her hips. "Wanted to talk to you about something."

He stared at her from where he lay splayed on his bed, a hand behind his head; he tried to project the nonchalance, disinterest, maybe even disdain he'd been working so hard on since _she'd_ left. "So, talk."

She didn't smile; just watched him, those cat-eyes of hers narrowed a bit. She opened her mouth to speak; her breath caught for a second before she forged on. "Jayne was maybe a little hard just then."

He grinned a bit, but it didn't feel warm. It felt spiteful. "You come here to apologize for him? Maybe you should tell him he should do that himself."

She raised an eyebrow. "Didn't say I thought he was wrong, or that he had anything much to apologize for. Just that he was a little hard."

He sat up straight, threw his legs over the side of the bed. With something like disbelief on his face: "So you came down to my bunk to tell me he was _right_?"

A brief, businesslike nod. "He was right about us not having work. He was right about how you've been, with the crew. And I know you don't give much thought to Jayne and his opinion, but I wanted to tell you —"

She stopped; took a deep breath. He stood up, so he was facing her. He had a height advantage on her. Not much, but a little bit. Hands on his hips, mirroring her stance: "Well? Spit it out, Zoe."

She fixed her eyes on his. "I thought you should know that Wash and I are talking about having a baby. Not going to, necessarily. He's got his share of concerns, mostly to do with this place. And he's right to have them. So if we decide to, well — if something hasn't changed here, it may just be that Serenity's not a place we'd want to stay. Not a place we'd want our baby born."

He didn't know for sure, but he felt pretty certain the color'd gone right out of his face. He just stared at her. And it didn't matter none that he was taller than her: he felt about five inches high. "You telling me you'd leave me?"

She sighed, and her face softened. She tilted her head. "Just giving you something to think on."

* * *

"So, what do you think, Sir?"

His eyes scanned over every inch of the Hornet. She was smaller than Serenity. Her bridge was narrow and tight, though the glass screen that curved around the sides of the room for visibility made her feel airy and open, even exposed. She had three bunks and a small infirmary, all spacious enough, off a central artery of the lower deck. The upper deck housed the engine room and a narrow galley. What Serenity had on her was her cargo hold, that open piece of space that felt like it went on forever. Needed a space like that, out in the black, to keep from going stir-crazy.

Yes, the Hornet was smaller, all the rooms a little lower, all the hallways a little tighter. Made a man feel like he'd suddenly grown, himself. She wouldn't have done forever. But for a trip like this, she was just what they needed.

He cut his eyes toward Zoe, quick, and then back at the boat. Cleared his throat and called in through the main hatch: "Kaylee?"

The girl came tumbling out into the dust of Beylix, her coveralls covered in the black of the engine. "Looks all right to me, Cap'n. She'll take you where you want to go. And there're a couple things I can do to give your thrusters some extra pick-up. Get you there all the quicker, and get you out in a hurry if it comes to that."

He shook his head. "Don't know we're gonna have time for that, Kaylee. I just want to know if she's spaceworthy now."

Her response was as sharp and fast as he'd ever gotten from her, her voice a bit higher than normal: "I don't care what you think you've got time for. If you're takin' Simon, I'm gonna make gorram sure your boat's in order." It took him by surprise. By the time he'd nodded once, though, she was out of sight, headed back toward Serenity.

He stood by his first mate for a spell of quiet, thinking on Kaylee's response. She was scared. Scared for Simon, because she was scared he'd fail. Without looking at Zoe, he asked the question that worried him, soft (almost under his breath). "You think I can fly her?"

She shrugged. "You can fly Serenity."

He shook his head. "No I can't, not the way you can fly Serenity. You think I can fly her like she needs to be flown?"

"I think you'll try your damnedest."

Shook his head again. "Not what I asked."

She bowed her head, her voice, when she spoke, low. "No, it's not. You asked me if I think you're good enough to save her life." She turned her head toward him, watched him for a while. (The wind of Beylix catching the curls around her face.) "You and I've been in _war_, Mal. You know as well as I do nobody can promise you she's not going to die. But I _have_ been in war with you. And I feel safe promising you, if it happens, it won't be your fault."

He took a deep breath. Hands in his pockets, his voice a bit ragged: "Zoe, I know we don't much talk about it. But I gotta know. Do you think —"

"If I'd thought it was your fault, I wouldn't be here. Don't you doubt that for a second."

A long moment of quiet, again, the two of them side by side, eyes forward, watching the Hornet, like she might up and talk to them. And then: "You and Wash ever think about what you were gonna name that little one, if you ever had her?"

Her eyes widened a touch, in surprise, maybe a little pain. And then a little smile. "Grace. We figured we'd call her Grace."

One short nod, and he looked over at the salesman, so much like that other salesman, from what almost seemed another life, back when he'd bought Serenity. At a gesture of his head, the man approached. "You make a decision? Reckon you'd be happy with her."

He nodded, his eyes back on the boat. "We'll take her." A beat. "Grace. That's a right nice name, Zoe. A right nice name."

* * *

_Translations_  
pìhuà: 'bullshit', 'nonsense'  
gǒuzǎizi: 'son of a dog'


	14. Chapter Thirteen

**Chapter Thirteen**

Kaylee checked her over, just like she promised she would — though not until he spent a heavy handful of platinum on parts she said she needed to upgrade his new girl. All in all, it took her a day, but he conjured that by the time she was finished she'd made that old derelict into a state-of-the-art machine, every bit worthy of her new name.

Sitting around the dinner table in the galley, now, night before they were set to leave. (All but River and Inara there. He reckoned the little one was with the Companion. She'd been spending near all her time there, when she wasn't wandering around Serenity like a ghost.) He stabbed his fork into a hunk of protein and lifted it to his mouth, all the while keeping on with the nonstop instructions he'd been doling out for a good hour. "While we're gone, I want you to take care of getting Serenity the care she needs. Kaylee, whatever parts you reckon we need, now or for holding on to, you can get those. When we come back, we may be in a hurry. And if we don't come back, I want her to be good for you, Zoe —"

"Sir." Zoe, beside him.

(Jayne snorted: "Like he's gonna listen to you." And sure enough, he talked right over her.)

Talking around the protein he was chewing: "Arrange a docking space for Grace in Beylix. We'll keep her there when we don't have use for her. Use the credentials we have on her. They're clean — won't pull up our record —"

"Sir."

"If you want to do some looking into jobs, now or future, Zo, you can ask around. Wouldn't be any harm in our knowing, and wouldn't do you any harm, putting yourself out there as our contact person. May be it'll just be you, anyhow —"

"Mal." Her voice hard, and he looked up at her, his fork stilling. "I know what's needed of me, Mal. And you're scaring Kaylee."

He pulled his eyes around to the mechanic. Her head was bowed, her eyes glued on her plate. She mumbled: "He ain't scaring me. I'm fine. Simon'll be fine."

The boy next to her smiled. Softly: "That's right, _băobèi_. I'll be fine." But when he reached for her hand, she pulled it away.

There was a spell of awkward silence, then. Everybody quiet; nobody knowing quite where to go from there. And just when the quiet was about to turn suffocating, Serenity spoke to them.

"I'm going with you."

* * *

Sometimes he thought maybe she figured she _was_ the ship, but whether she was playing or just crazy, it never much ceased to amuse him. Couldn't deny the soft spot he held for her, despite the trouble she caused. She'd disappear, and suddenly the ship would start talking to him, and whatever worry he'd have would usually go away.

He and Wash had had something of a laugh over it, one day toward the end of Wash's time in the 'Verse.

"You're being nicer," Serenity told him as he sat on the bridge beside his pilot.

He glanced over at the man. (He was grinning as he looked out into the black.) "Well, fancy that, Wash. Serenity thinks I'm being nicer. Reckon I should get a prize?"

Still with an eye on the black, Wash nodded thoughtfully. "You know, I might have to agree with Serenity on this one. Your mood does seem to have lightened in days past." He shrugged. "Though I don't know about a prize. I kind of figured you were just high."

He was about to respond — set to say something clever and witty — when Wash's smile dropped. "Oh — don't look —"

And then a beep from the screen above him, and the transmission signal read: "COMMUNICATION: ax7864-r2958 to ty9056-n8342." Cursed himself for knowing that that meant the Simon had just waved the Training House.

His eyes fixed on the screen: "Turn it on."

Wash frowned; ran a hand through blond spiky hair. "C'mon, Mal, you don't want to —"

Didn't look down at him; he was still watching the screen above. "Turn it on."

"Mal —" Just then, the screen flickered to life, and Wash smirked. "Well, I guess you didn't need my help. Serenity did it for you."

"He wants to see her," Serenity explained. "He wants to see my _gē ge_ and _jiĕ jiĕ_."

* * *

"No." The boy's voice was hard. He was standing now, his hands braced against the table in front of him. As Mal and the rest looked on, his eyes darted around the room like he might catch sight of her if he looked quick enough at the right spot.

"Yes."

Simon took a deep breath. His words coming slow, like to calm her: "_Mei mei_, where are you?"

Her voice when it came was too high, nearing hysterical. "I'm not your _mei mei_. I'm Serenity. And tomorrow I'll be Grace, and you'll have to let me come, because a captain needs a boat to fly."

He looked around at the rest of the crew (caught Mal's eye and held it, something like a plea in his own). "Does anyone know where she is when she does this? Where she goes to do this?"

Didn't know quite why — maybe it was just the mood of the whole of Serenity right then — but it was almost like he could feel some of Simon's desperation rubbing off on him. He ran a hand through his hair, frustrated beyond what he should have been that he couldn't give the boy an answer. "Wash knew — if I could recollect what he said that one time — we used to listen to her, on the bridge —"

But he couldn't remember.

* * *

Likely, he couldn't remember because he was too busy thinking about Simon and Inara's conversation right then to pay the tiniest bit of attention to his pilot beside him, when Wash'd yelled at her, half in jest, to get out of the — where?

"Simon," Inara was saying, smiling, on the screen in front of him, her lips drawing it out, slow and affectionate, her eyes just a bit lidded. "How are you?"

She looked the way she did when she looked at _him_, but she spoke to him in that upper-class Sihnonese dialect that made it seem like they wanted to lock out the rest of the world, and it made him want to put his fist through the monitor. (Must've been getting tense, he guessed, because he could just hear Wash: "Take it easy there, cowboy.")

On the split screen, alongside her face, there was the doctor's. "Same as I ever was." And then, his eyes darting back and forth across her face like he was looking for something, with a little too much emphasis on the question: "How are _you_?"

She bowed her head just so much, her eyes cast downward. "No change since you last saw me, Doctor Tam."

The boy's brow furrowed. "Are you taking care of yourself?"

"I'm a good girl, Simon. And besides, it's hard not to, here. Fresh air, good food. You should try it sometime."

He smirked, and Mal got tired of looking at him. Closed out the window with his face (hers now taking up the whole screen) so he just heard his voice: "Oh, you're a riot. Yes, maybe I'll summer there."

She'd tilted her head, her arms crossed disapprovingly. "Don't frown. It's unbecoming on you."

"Yes, mother."

In front of him, looking almost right at him, she smiled again. "And how's River?"

The faceless voice (no less annoying for that): "She misses you. She loves you. You know that."

A sadness in her features, and: "I know. I love her too."

His voice, ardent. "I know you do."

Seemed to Mal that there was more _in_ that than was in it; there were things there being said without being said, things he didn't want to hear.

A bit of quiet, then. She looked like she wanted to say something but stopped herself each time it came close to getting out. So it was the boy that spoke next, and what he said, in that moment that seemed like it was about the two of them and their special language, surprised him: "He's doing better, you know."

And she nodded like he'd answered the question she'd been wanting to ask, like she was relieved. "Good. That's good." Or maybe like the doctor had just absolved her of the guilt she knew she should be feeling, for leaving the way she did. Because maybe, if he was better, she wouldn't have to feel so damn guilty.

Quickly, then: "I should go. They'll be expecting me for dinner. Move my queen. G5 to g2."

A laugh. "So you're on the retreat. I sense a change in my fortunes."

With a small, sly smile, that one that held back as much as it gave: "The game's not over yet."

Didn't want to imagine the boy's answering look. "Inara —" A beat. "It's — it's good to talk to you. You know I go a little crazy cooped up here. I just —"

"I know. Call soon. Anytime."

And then the boy disconnected, but she didn't, just kept looking out the screen. "Mal." Not a question. Her tongue darted out to wet her lip. Her eyes were dark, piercing, like she could see right into the bridge, right into him, and he realized she hadn't been looking at Simon the way she looked at him, because _this_ was the way she looked at him. "Mal. Are you there?"

He'd near forgotten Wash sitting right there till he heard him let out an exasperated puff of air. "Mal. You can't seriously be telling me you're not going to push that button."

He looked down at his hand, hovering right over it. When had that happened? She looked into the screen, her voice low, her tone — something: "Mal."

And for just a second, he almost pushed it. Came so close, his finger grazing the green button on the console — the tiniest move and they'd have been talking. But that was the thought that made him pull his hand back, all of a sudden, like he'd gotten a shock. Talk — wasn't nothing left to talk about, nothing left to say. Hadn't ever been anything to say between the two of them, truth be told.

On the screen, the edge of her mouth pulled up into an impish smile: "Well, Malcolm Reynolds, in the event you watch this — and I think you will — I hope you're well." A pause, and her voice was just above a whisper. "I think of you."

The picture broke.

Beside him, his pilot, alternating bass and falsetto: "'Wait, Inara. Don't go. I think of you, too. I love you.' 'I love you, too, Mal.'" (With his hands clasped and his eyes aflutter there at the end.)

Rolled his eyes at the man. "Ain't how it would've gone. Don't be an ass."

The blond man shook his head. "I can't believe you didn't answer that. You, sir, are a ninny."

He shrugged. "Guess I just ran out of things to say."

The pilot rolled his eyes. "And a liar, to boot. Tell you what. I'll just sit here and pretend I don't notice when you record all that to a capture, and you can pretend I'm an idiot."

Crossed his arms across his chest, his eyes fixed on some point way out in the black. "What's that even mean? She thinks of me. What, when she takes her gorram tea?"

And then, above him, Serenity was giggling, a girlish little giggle: "No, you silly. _That's_ not when."

"Jesus, can't you stop listening to everything all the time?" Reckoned she could tell by his tone that he wasn't angry, though. "Listen, little one. You best be keeping this to yourself, capice?"

Another giggle. "Don't worry. It can be a secret, just between you, me, and the —"

* * *

"Engine room."

Simon stopped his pacing and fixed him with his eyes. "Are you sure?"

Mal glared at him. "Because it's always so funny to lie to you about where that moon-brain of a sister of yours is."

"Simon." They both look toward Zoe's voice. She was still sitting at the galley table, Wash's chair empty beside her, like it had been for months. "He's right. There's a communications relay point in the engine room. She must've hacked it once when she was there with Kaylee."

The boy was off, down the hall, and Mal was following him. It wasn't so far (though he had to remember to be grateful for this space; that Hornet was smaller by some measure). When he put his head in, Simon had already cleared the engine and was standing in front of his sister, his hands on her shoulders. Every few words he spoke, he shook her some, and she was crying. "River —" (His voice fierce.) "River, you can't. Don't you understand? If something happens to us, and you're there —"

Her voice was high and full of tears. "What will it matter to you, then? If you're dead, and we're all dead, it won't matter to anyone. And no one will remember us, and we won't exist."

Her brother shook his head. "River, don't talk like that. It would matter to _mā ma_. She probably worries about you. Her little girl. And to _bá bá_."

She shook her head, pulling against him, her long hair flying out around her. "You don't believe that. You think that they've thrown away all their children."

He swallowed. "River, you know that if you come it will be harder. You know that. You want her to get better, don't you?"

And then her eyes narrowed, and her voice was all venom. "Why do you always have to _help_ everybody? You can't help me, and you think maybe if you can help her that will make up for it."

He shook his head (his hair askance). "No. That's not true, _mei mei_."

"But it doesn't work like that, _gē ge_, because she's not just yours to help. She's mine, too. My turn."

The doctor's fingers were going white as he gripped her shoulders, and Mal took a step forward. "Simon! Let her alone!" His voice must've come out sterner than he'd meant it, because the boy's hands relaxed, and then she was tearing away from him and past Mal, out of the room.

Simon glared at him. "Great. Thanks. This is perfect."

As the doctor moved to push past him, Mal caught his arm. "Leave her be. She's just upset. She'll snap out of it."

"'Just upset'? Should I remind you what happened last time she got upset? No. I'm sorry. You don't get to just pretend like you understand her all of a sudden." And then he was gone, after his sister.

He conjured this time he did understand her, no matter what Simon said. He reckoned maybe she felt like she was losing a little piece of herself.

* * *

He measured time passing by the number of times Serenity talked to him; the number of times Simon waved Inara; the number of jobs they took, here and there. The number of times he watched the end of that wave, recorded onto capture while Wash pretended not to notice.

Sometimes he'd play a game with himself, trying to pick out things about her that had changed. That crease beside her eye? The length of her hair? Sometimes he imagined how that conversation might've gone, if he'd stepped into it. And sometimes he used it — the sound of her voice, the look in her eyes as she said his name — for other things, things that left him ashamed the next morning.

Which is all to say he'd studied it. He knew it by heart. And that made it straightforward enough to pick out the falsity in her voice when she called (for him, this time) some time later.

Because it wasn't just that they didn't fight. It was that quiver in her voice. She was nervous. If there was a reason she kept her distance from him, it certainly wasn't that he made her nervous. The look in her eye, the steel in her voice as she said his name — those things were enough to tell him that. Nope, the Inara that looked back at him over this wave, talking to him about the weather — wasn't an Inara he knew. It was an Inara in trouble.

He'd made a choice not to answer her call, that first time.

But this wasn't one that could go unanswered.

* * *

The next morning, they were off, with credentials enough to cross a Hornet-class, flown by one Jonathan Atticus, clear to Sihnon. Left Serenity near desolate, with only Kaylee and Zoe to see them off. ("We don't come back, you're gonna have to be learning a mess of new names," he joked to Zoe. It fell a mite flat.)

River had run off somewhere; never quite forgave Simon for whatever it was she was angry about, nor for them bruises on her shoulders. The boy had paced back and forth in front of Grace, running a nervous hand again and again through all that black hair, until Kaylee'd stopped him, pulled him to her, and kissed him. Trying to keep up the look of good cheer (clear as day faked, based on her mood of late), she promised him she'd watch out for his sister.

And then they were off. Three hours off Beylix, and he set her autopilot to run the course he'd plotted into the Core. Talked into the evening with Simon about her doctor, Chaudhury: how to find him, what to tell him, what they wanted to know.

And then his legs took him not to his bunk but to the little infirmary, where she was laid out and hooked to a ventilator that told her when to breathe. He stood at the end of the table and took a deep breath, timing the rise and fall of his chest to hers. Let a finger run along the edge of the sheet covering her, as if touching something touching her might connect him to her somehow. "'Nara —" (His voice thick.) "I think on you, too."

"She knows."

He squeezed his eyes shut and let out a long, shuddery breath. Ten hours off of Beylix, and there was River Tam, crouched under Inara Serra's sickbed.

* * *

_Translations_  
băobèi: 'treasure'  
gē ge: 'older brother'  
jiĕ jiĕ: 'older sister'  
mā ma: 'mother'  
bá bá: 'father'


	15. Chapter Fourteen

**Chapter Fourteen**

Miranda. Miranda Miranda Miranda Miranda Miranda Miranda Miranda.

Sometimes he thought if he closed his eyes tight enough and said the word to himself times enough when he opened his eyes it might be like it never happened. But every time when he opened his eyes, Wash and Book were still dead; Zoe was still grieving; Simon still carried that haunted, blank look on his face, and Kaylee that sadness.

This time when he did it, he was sitting on the floor of Grace's infirmary, his back to the wall opposite the bed where the Companion slept, River's head tucked in his lap. She'd been shivering and sniffling when he pulled her out from under Inara's bed. It had taken all he had to get her to cross the room, where he sat and held her tight till she stopped shaking and drifted off to sleep (though every now and again a hand or foot kicked out; he figured her sleep was rarely peaceful).

He himself had drifted off once, and just once. Wouldn't happen again, because that time, when he woke up, the girl was standing over Inara, holding a scalpel to the Companion's wrist (red on her own) and muttering nonsense to herself about truth in blood. He was behind her in a second, pulling back her arm, yanking her away, back to him. But he was too weary for rage, and she'd fallen against him bonelessly anyhow. Even after that bit of excitement, he couldn't quite bring himself to go and fetch her brother, so there he sat, his hand clamped over the gash on her wrist (not so bad as he'd thought), his eyes closed tight but sleep nowhere close.

"Miranda Miranda Miranda Miranda Miranda Miranda Miranda Miranda..." Said it until it stopped making sense, stopped sounding to his ears like something that existed in the 'Verse.

But when he opened his eyes, the little albatross was still curled up in his lap, bleeding and dreaming, and _she_ was still lying there, across the room. Still dying.

* * *

So what? Had there ever been any choice in it, really? Instead of lifting her tiny little body up into his arms (like he'd lifted the Companion's them months later), could he have left them both on Beaumonde — run and left them with what she'd done? They'd've been captured, maybe dead, within a day, he figured, after a ruckus like that. And then. And then.

The boy had waved her the night before the Fanty and Mingo meeting. "We can't stay here. We're leaving Serenity," he'd told her.

She let out a little gasp. Her eyes had gone wide, her face twisted with worry. She held out a hand toward him, like she could, maybe, just maybe, touch him across all them thousands of miles. "No. No, Simon. You can't do that. You're not safe."

His voice hard: "We don't really have a choice. That's been made abundantly clear."

Shaking her head, like to will it away: "Yes, you do. Apologize. Do what you have to. Just stay."

The boy cocked his head, a far away look in his eyes. "Would you?"

Her eyes had dropped to her lap. When she'd lifted them next, she'd sighed. "Well, at least tell me where on Beaumonde you'll be. I'll come to you. I could be there within a day. You and River will come back here, with me, at least for a time."

And whatever in the gorram 'Verse that meant — why she would offer something like that, why Simon wouldn't have seemed surprised, just a touch sad — he hadn't wanted to know.

He didn't know how they ended things — he'd turned off the monitor, gone down to his bunk, and promptly put his fist through his mirror. (Seven years bad luck, give or take a few. No worse than he was already doing, he conjured.) No one else was the wiser: the weave was off by the next afternoon, and his skin looked near-new. But he was — he was wiser. Wise to _something_. Something there that he wished he could un-see, un-hear, un-think.

And so he went into that meeting with Fanty and Mingo full expecting to give them two away. Leave them behind. Couldn't do business with the boy on his ship, like he'd told Kaylee. Just hadn't told her all the reasons.

And so what? So she'd come to Beaumonde, and she'd take them away. Maybe he'd even see her, and she'd curse him for being so mean (not even _human_, she'd say in her head). She'd kiss the boy, and she'd pet the girl, and they'd leave together, her holding them under her wings. After River was asleep, she'd take the boy into her room. Later, with his head between her legs, she'd cry out to Buddha, and some time after that, as he moved inside her, she'd just cry, because she was _rén_ after all.

But so what? So he'd leave them on Beaumonde, because they sure as hell weren't for the likes of Serenity, just like she wasn't. Hadn't ever been; he was just too blind to see it. Only ones belonged on Serenity were her family.

* * *

"Simon." Her whole body jerked, that time, and she was muttering in her sleep. Her hair looked near-black, spread over his lap. Her words weren't nonsense, though (if ever they were). Just as she spoke them, the door to the infirmary slid open, and the doctor pushed into the room. Three in the morning, by the time they'd been keeping most recent.

The boy didn't notice him or his sister, though, tucked in the corner nearest the door, opposite the patient. Just walked toward her bed (put a hand to her wrist with practiced skill as he glanced for a few quick seconds at his watch), then opened a low drawer and pulled out a bag with tubing around it. (For blood — he'd seen plenty enough like it in battleground medical tents.)

The doctor (still dressed in his vest and white shirt, never mind the hour) was rolling up his left sleeve, a tourniquet and beveled needle on the tray beside him. And just as he was snapping on surgical gloves: "Mind telling me just what it is you think you're doing?"

He swung around on his little stool, his mouth half-open, his eyes wide — nervous-like. When he saw the girl in his lap, though, his face went dark, his jaw set tight. Slowly, emphasizing each word: "_How did she get here_?"

Shrugged; tried to keep his expression neutral. "Probably should be asking her that. I was a mite surprised to find her here, myself. Seems she didn't take too kindly to bein' left behind."

Grumbled to himself, in his head, that she'd asked to come, after all, just like she'd asked to come to Lilac, even if the boy didn't know it. (Her brother couldn't imagine she might have a mind of her own.)

Now, in front of him, the doctor stood; tried to look imposing. "I thought I made myself _perfectly clear_ —" His voice was loud, echoing in the room, and the girl twisted a bit but didn't awaken.

He gestured with his chin at her head in his lap. "Again, you can talk to her about it. Don't see it as doing too much good. I reckon we'd both agree we can't turn around now." Simon's quick look over his shoulder — at the Companion — proved him right. "And on that subject, I want you to tell me just what you came in here to do."

Simon's hands were deep in his pockets, his face hard to decipher. Set, but anxious about — something. "I was about to draw some blood."

A nod. "That much was plain. I want to know why."

He took a breath. "Because we should have a ready supply. It's not unlikely that she'll need a transfusion. We need to be ready."

He'd conjured as much. "You reckoned you'd do this in the middle of the night?"

He tilted his chin up, maybe in defiance. "I thought it best not to provoke alarm in regard to her condition."

A harsh laugh escaped him. "Her _condition_? Plain as day she's dying. I don't guess this makes it that much worse, now, do it?"

The doctor swallowed. "I suppose not, no."

Closed his eyes; took a deep breath. Tried to rein in his temper. Probably didn't make no sense why it should bother him so. But it did, something fierce. (Fierce as those images roiling in his brain.) "Here's what I'm curious about, Doctor. Just what made you think it should be yours?"

Simon's eyes narrowed; his jaw was set hard. "Do you know what happens when you mix incompatible blood types, Captain? Do you want me to describe it to you in detail? What would have happened to her?"

No, no, no, gorramit, and Simon knew what he meant. The boy's evasions didn't change that. "So you're telling me you're the only one in the whole gorram crew could've given her blood?" His whole body felt taut, like the string of a bow nearing its breaking point.

But the boy didn't budge an inch; just watched Mal for a second, like he was a bug about to be dissected, and nodded slow to himself, like he was just coming to an understanding of sorts. His voice had a hard edge to it.

"Would it have _meant_ something to you, Mal, if it had been you? If you'd been able to give this to her? If your blood had been inside her?" He shook his head, answered his own question. "No, it would have meant _nothing_. Less than nothing: it would have meant that you had to wait until she was nearly in the gorram ground to offer up something to her, and that even then it wasn't something it hurt you to part with." A hard laugh. "Let me tell you something, Mal. This isn't about whatever it is you imagine you want with her. It's about her. It's about what's best for her. Sometimes I don't think you even know what that is."

Anger, white hot. His words came out a growl: "You best stop talking before I stop you talking."

He shook his head; let out a breath of air. "You're a piece of work. Yes. Of the three of us here, I'm the only one who could have given her blood. Perhaps River, though I'd have to cross-match her to make sure."

Silence for a time, then, and the boy turned back to that seat by her bed. Circled his arm with the rubber tourniquet and bit off a knot; found a vein like it was something he did everyday, and then his blood was running down a thin bit of tube and pooling, dark, almost black, in the bag hanging beside him.

When he spoke again, there was an edge to his voice, coupled with a kind of bewilderment. "What is it you think you get out of fighting me, Mal?" A beat. "We both want the _same thing_."

There wasn't much to say to that.

* * *

In his mind he divided his life into neat little sections, each one bookmarked by tragedy. Birth (a kind of tragedy in and of itself, he reckoned) till Shadow. Then there was Shadow till Serenity. Serenity till Miranda. And Miranda till — this.

That night on Beaumonde was the turning point for the last chapter. Sitting with Fanty and Mingo, talking on Lilac, he'd been blessedly ignorant of that place that'd been so much on the little one's mind. _Miranda_. After that night, he'd never be able to forget it.

Until River'd had her turn, that night hadn't been about Miranda in the least. And his hatred for Simon hadn't been about Miranda. Up until that night, he'd hated Simon Tam because of _her_. Seeing those waves made it a hundred times worse. He knew enough before not to like the boy — had caught him in or near the shuttle a handful of times (her always with some sassy retort at his piqued anger), had heard them talk in that fancy tongue, had seen them dance like they were the same person.

And the funny thing was, looking back on the waves now, knowing she'd been sick (_dying_), didn't make it any better. So many things it had. Over days past he'd gone over every speck of their time together, tried to put the pieces together with this new glue, the dying. It explained a heap of things. Explained too much.

Didn't explain this in any good way, though. He wanted, more than he wanted most things, to be able to tell himself that her leaving his boat had been about her being sick — about her not wanting to cause folk grief. But her talking to Simon — and talking so _intimate_ — it told him plain as day that her leaving wasn't about that. It was about _him_. And every time he saw them talk, her words came back to him like a slap in the face: "Mal — I don't _want _that." She'd told him, then. Made it perfectly clear. Then why did those waves — a question here, a confidence there — feel like a betrayal? Because they did. Every time.

Whether or not she gorram _thought on him_.

That night, Kaylee'd been going on and on about the boy until he snapped. Wanted her to see how foolish she truly was. Wanted to protect her, too, he reckoned. "How do you know what he feels? He's got River to worry on, but he still could've shown you... If I truly wanted someone bad enough, wouldn't be a thing in the 'Verse that could stop me from goin' to her."

She'd turned it back on him, and good. "Tell that to Inara." Ironic thing was his little mechanic didn't realize they were just alike, in truth: both of them pining after a body that didn't want them back.

But all of a sudden the night had shifted. He'd gone in a blink from never having heard that word (_Miranda_) to hearing it in his dreams every night, in his waking thoughts every hour of the day.

Back to that first question, then. Had there ever been any choice in it? Could he have just slipped out, quiet, when that switch in her head got flicked? No. He figured there wasn't never a choice. If he'd left them on Beaumonde, the girl having killed — how many? four? five? — it wasn't just them that'd pay for it. Others would get caught up in the crossfire, others who intended to come looking for them. And no matter the betrayal, no matter the taking and the giving, no matter getting it all tossed back in his face, no matter _any_ of it, he reckoned (no matter what she said) he was just a little too _rén _to let that happen.

* * *

Watched Simon's blood flow into that bag for twelve minutes, by his count. The room was silent, all except River's occasional mutterings.

Finally, Simon sighed. Unhooked his arm and tended to the bag before walking back to her bed (his hand holding a bit of gauze to the puncture in his arm) and watched her for a moment. "I think, Mal, that you think we were something we were not."

He tensed. "Do I, now?"

A nod, though he was still looking down at her face, her closed eyes. "You should know that you're mistaken."

Suddenly, in his lap, her eyes were wide open. "Madness. Madness."

And she was up, pushing at him, kicking him, struggling to stand. ("Jesus Christ," he muttered as her elbow connected with his ribcage.)

Now she was standing, facing Simon and the Companion, but her eyes far away. And what came out of her mouth made, all at once, perfect sense and no sense at all. "Have you looked at this scan carefully, Doctor?" she asked the wall, or maybe something beyond it. "At his face?" A beat, like she was waiting for an answer. "It's love, in point of fact. Something a good deal more dangerous."

* * *

Before Miranda, he'd hated the boy because of _her_. After Miranda, he hated him for something entirely different.

He'd kept the boy on his boat that time, after Beaumonde, not just because he couldn't leave the little albatross to what would've found them in that bar — but he couldn't leave _her_, either, to stumble into it, trying to find them. And when he'd gotten her wave, he didn't need to think twice about whether or not to go to her. "What about the part where it's a trap?" Wash asked — but Mal reckoned his pilot knew the answer to that better than anybody.

When he first saw her, he let himself feel a moment of joy. Joked about ponies, and, even as she chastised him in her way, she'd sounded happy, too. But maybe he'd just been fooling himself. Certainly felt like a fool, later on Serenity, when she'd made him admit that he'd come there for _her_.

The next days and nights went by so fast. Wished he could grab at them, stop them — but they slipped past him like wind. (_Leaf on the wind_.)

The Shepherd, dead. Strapping his body to Serenity's hull; defiling it with red paint.

Wash, dead. Pulling the rod that had gone through him out of his lifeless chest.

Simon, shot. Watching her, leaning over him (not crying like she'd not cried so many times before), trying to stop the blood.

And Zoe, in that white dress, her face just — empty — as she put flowers on her dead husband's grave.

Yessir, after Miranda, he'd hated Simon for something entirely different. But how he wished to God it was still just for the other.

* * *

_Translations_  
rén: 'human'


	16. Chapter Fifteen

**Chapter Fifteen**

Before Shadow, he hadn't been a man much prone to rage. A body who knew the man he was now — a man who seemed to get angrier and angrier with each passing day — would have a hard time recognizing him in that fresh-faced young'un who'd passed his days cow-herding and listening to his momma's jazzy Earth-That-Was tunes. Back in them days, he'd been free spirited and curious. He'd wanted to see the universe, so he'd gone off to do some schooling. Told the girl in the farm around the bend he was so keen on that he'd be back. But he wasn't, for a long time. And then Shadow didn't exist anymore.

"Mal, Alliance checkpoint coming up." Jayne's voice — over the wireless. (Though the ship was so small he could just about, from where he was in the galley kitchen — drinking her stupid tea, didn't know why'd he'd brought it along — hear the merc's voice carrying from the bridge.)

Took him all of five steps to get there. "Any signs we should be worried?"

Jayne looked over his shoulder. "Naw, not really. Credentials sent us clean through the last one."

That had been yesterday. Had that been the day he'd found River in the infirmary, the day he fought Simon? Yes, it was the same day he'd had to explain to a disgruntled Jayne Cobb just why the girl was on board. He'd had brief snatches of shuteye since then but nothing you'd rightly call sleep. He reckoned the last time he'd slept — _really_ slept — had been on that red sofa, back on Serenity, right at the start of all this. He breathed a deep breath. "We need anything else for this one?"

Jayne grunted. "Well, you got us a destination more exact than 'the Core'? Seems to be that right there's gonna flag us up as not quite on the level."

Shook his head to get himself out of his haze. "Uh — yeah. Yeah. Simon said — Osiris. We'll find this doctor on Osiris."

Jayne cocked an eyebrow. "Osiris? Thought you said this fella was on Ariel."

He closed his eyes, trying to focus on Jayne past his exhaustion. "I did. I did. That's what that priestess on Sihnon told me. But Simon did some looking into it. Says we want to be headed to Osiris. Alliance postal code — I can't quite remember."

The merc furrowed his brow (or, seemed to him he did — all was looking a mite blurry). "Mal, you okay?"

He squeezed his eyes shut and took a couple breaths. "Yeah. Yeah. I just feel a little — think I'm just tired. Listen, can you handle this? I'm gonna go lie myself down for a few minutes."

The gunhand looked a little skeptical, but he shrugged. "Sure thing, Mal. I'll let you know if we run into anything sticky."

And then he was stumbling out the door and toward his room. It was funny how sudden weariness could catch up with a body.

As he was pushing open the hatch to his bunk, he caught sight of the girl out of the corner of his eye. She cocked her head. "It's just as well. You wouldn't have liked what he has planned."

Just made it into the room and to the bed before he collapsed. That was the last thing he knew for a long time.

* * *

Funny how, after all that _rage_ he'd felt, after Miranda, it was like none of it ever happened. Like he'd imagined all them waves. Imagined all them looks and laughs and —

After the signal went out, the Operative had given them a tow to a repair yard on Persephone. They'd stayed there just over a month, the Operative doing his part — paying off the people he needed to, Mal expected — to keep them from being noticed.

He'd kept mostly to himself in those early days. Didn't much want to face any of them, so he avoided those spaces where he might wind up seeing other folk: the bridge, the galley, the cargo hold. Didn't want to face the disapproving looks. Didn't want to face Zoe's tearlessness. Didn't want to face the emptiness of a ship without Wash.

Six days after they got to Persephone, they went together on one of the Operative's shuttles to Haven: took the bodies of their friends and laid them to rest. Try as he might to find blame in their eyes, he couldn't.

In the dust of Haven, Simon held Kaylee's hand. He noticed.

Next day, he made his way toward the galley to grab some food to take back to his bunk, and he heard their girlish giggles through the door. "So, have you _been with_ him, yet?" Inara's voice (that teasing lilt in it).

The responding giggle was Kaylee's. "Nooo. But he — ever since he told me, he keeps on _lookin'_ at me. You know, a sexy look."

Took a step closer to the hatch and leaned against it, arms crossed, just watching them. They were sitting at the galley table, mugs of steaming liquid between them. Kaylee was in her coveralls, hair pulled back in a messy ponytail, a smudge of grease on her cheek. The other was sitting across from her, her long dark hair falling down around her face. Most times it wasn't like that — most times she pulled some or all of it up and away, swept it into something that looked formal and prepared. With her hair down, though, she looked younger, softer — someone he might even be able to reach if only he tried.

Now, she let out a soft laugh, one eyebrow quirked upward. "Simon with a sexy look? I think, dearest Kaylee, that I can safely say I have never seen this look."

He could see Kaylee's head tilt, her face screw up. Timidly: "Really?"

The Companion smiled and reached across the table to take hold of her hands. "_Really_, _mei mei_."

Kaylee heaved a sigh. "Well, every time he does it I turn into a regular mess — blubbering and the like — and have to run off. He must think I don't have no sense at all!"

With a disapproving tilt of her head, her voice all soothing indulgence: "I'm sure he thinks nothing of the sort."

"Oh, 'Nara," the mechanic pouted, drawing out her name. "I don't know how you do it so _easy_."

A ghost of a smile; her eyes big and brown and seeming genuine perplexed. "Do what, _mei mei_?"

And he reckoned if she didn't know what it was she did, then that right there was most of the problem. Her, with all her training and skills, with all the men (and women) she'd practiced on, didn't know how seamlessly it slipped into her every day. The seducing. She'd talked to Kaylee like she had no idea the doctor might feel something for her, like it would never even cross her mind. Maybe, he thought, maybe that was because it didn't.

Kaylee, bless her little candid mouth, spelled it out for her, still in that little pouty voice. "You _know_ — your seducin'. I just can't manage to keep it together around him." She grinned. "Always reckoned the good thing about having a bona fide Companion on board would be I could learn a thing or two about seducin'. Guess I forgot to pay attention."

Inara shook her head (her hair bouncing a bit around her face); shook Kaylee's hands in hers on the table. "But _mei mei_, you don't need to seduce him. He cares for you. Perhaps he loves you. You don't need to be anything but yourself, with your giggles and your grease smears." A thumb to the mechanic's cheek, then, swiping at that bit of black. And then a pause, and her eyes dropped, and her voice went soft. "Seduction is what a woman does when she can't count on any of that. She creates a disguise."

"I never much thought about Companionin' like that before."

"Like what?"

"Like — sad." Her face was quirked into a troubled little frown. "'Nara?"

"Yes, _mei mei_?"

"You ever — you ever think about —" She stopped.

"We can't all have what you have, _mei mei_. Some of us will be doomed to deal in disguises forever." A beat. "Now go find that boy of yours immediately."

* * *

He came to awareness just once, brief, before everything started to unravel later. His eyes fluttered open, and the only thing in his vision was a huge pair of brown eyes staring straight at his.

"His amygdala is functioning properly."

But when he closed his eyes, everything went back to black.

* * *

Kaylee'd gone — rushed out of the galley lickity split, he reckoned to go (at the Companion's prompting) find her doctor.

He stood for a few seconds outside the galley doorway, watching her, before heading in. She was still sitting there, eyes down on the table but not looking at it. Something a mite sad in her eyes.

"Shouldn't be encouragin' her."

She started a bit in surprise; pulled her shawl tight around her shoulders as her head whipped around toward him. "What?"

He turned his back to her as he rummaged through whatever ersatz coffees they'd picked up of late (not really seeing the labels much though). When he answered her, he tried to sound casual. His voice came out harder than he meant. "Last thing I need's a soap opera on my ship. Last thing Zoe needs."

She eyed him. "Have you _asked_ Zoe what she needs?"

Zoe'd been at the front of all of their minds, he reckoned. Or she should've been (should've been on Kaylee's, too, instead of the boy). She'd been working herself ragged on Serenity — welding this, wiring that — and, when she wasn't working, she was tucked away in the bunk she'd shared with Wash. She made her pleasantries in passing, but that was it.

Right then, it made him angry — her talking about Zoe, _his_ Zoe, like he was doing something wrong by his first mate, like _she_ somehow understood better. He turned around, slow, his body tense. "Don't you talk like you belong here, Inara. You're a visitor. That's it. You left, and you'll be leavin' again soon as we get up and runnin'." A beat, and he took a step forward. "Which means, by my lights, that if there's a fallout from this thing — if that boy abandons her, like I expect he'll do — I'm the one's gotta clean up the mess. Not you. Me. So I'd appreciate it if you'd keep your opinions out of her ears."

She frowned up at him from where she still sat at the table; spoke quietly. "I don't know why you think so ill of him."

And that should've come as no surprise, because she was _always defending him_, but it still smarted some. Because _that_ was what she wanted to say? After he told her, in so many words, to _leave_, it was his opinion of the boy she wanted to speak on? His voice tinged with a sort of bitter sarcasm: "Aw, shucks, you know me. Them pretty, smart boys, them that dance well and kiss even better? They're just not my type."

She surprised him then by standing, sudden. Took a quick step toward him, her shoulders set, her dark eyes hard, focused right on him. She was angry. He was glad. Must've meant something, that she still bothered getting angry.

And what she said was: "That's because _no one is_. No one's _ever_ good enough for the great Malcolm Reynolds. _Everyone_ falls short in your book. Simon and Kaylee are _tired_, Mal. Tired of just existing. They want to live. So they try, but you _blame_ them for the fact that they can't live up to your oh-so-lofty expectations. You begrudge them for wanting to live, because you don't." A beat, and her eyes hadn't wavered from his. "And Mal? That's why you'll always be alone."

Felt like he'd been slapped. He watched her for a second. "Soon as we can leave, you'll be off my ship."

She tilted her head, the eyes that watched him still dark as the black. "You think Zoe's like you, but she's not. Zoe wanted to live, because she had someone that she loved." And then she was gone.

* * *

When he woke up, his head was pounding. It took more than a couple seconds for him to piece together — coming in here, collapsing. He looked at the bedside clock in his room. Studied the time and date for a good minute.

One day. He'd been asleep a day.

Simon.

He made it out of his bunk and to the little infirmary down that narrow hall in just a blink and thank God in heaven _she was still there_, lying on the table at that edge of the room, where he'd spent all the night before (or the night before that?) watching her.

She wasn't alone.

River was lying alongside her, curled around her like a child against its mother, her dark hair splayed against the other's pale arm. When he walked in, she opened her eyes but didn't move; watched him as he moved into the room.

"River —" He reached a hand toward her, palm out, like to calm her. "You want to tell me what happened?"

She hadn't moved, but it seemed like her muscles had tensed. "You went to sleep."

A deep breath. "After that."

The girl followed him with her eyes. When she spoke, her breath ruffled the Companion's hair. "Jayne fell down and broke his crown..."

He swallowed. "Where is he? Where's Jayne? Did you hurt Jayne?"

A slight shake of the head — almost unnoticeable. "Went to bed to mend his head with vinegar and brown paper." Her voice intoned the rhyme in a sing-songy lilt.

Took another step toward her. "And where's your brother?"

She closed her eyes, and when she spoke again her voice was a high. "He went to the other end of the wave."

And he was off to the bridge, to check the Cortex's communications log. As he left, she was mumbling a tuneless lullaby. "Hush, little baby, don't say a word. _Bábá_'s gonna buy you a mockingbird..."

* * *

First time he saw them kiss was that afternoon. He was headed down to the infirmary so the doctor could check on his eye (the red in it from his fight with the Operative less than it had been but still visible), but he stopped on the stairs when he saw them.

They were standing in the living area outside the infirmary face to face, Kaylee's eyes closed, her arms at her sides, her head tilted up to him. The boy's hands were at her cheeks, his fingertips grazing over her forehead, her nose, her eyelids, her lips, like he wanted to memorize the contours. And he was looking down at her with reverence, like he'd never seen anything quite like her in the world.

He nearly tripped as he backed back up the stairs. They didn't seem to hear him.

But he thought for some time after that about _wanting to live_, and whether she was right about him. Whether, somewhere along the line, he had forgotten what that meant.

* * *

On the Cortex screen at the back of the bridge, Simon's face appeared (wearing those secret agent spectacles, not lost after all, it seemed). He looked anxious; ran a nervous hand through his hair while he waited for an answer on the other end of the wave.

It didn't take long. The man that answered was middle-aged, with salt and pepper hair. His dress was Core, and fancy Core at that: a Sihnonese robe over a three-piece suit. But he didn't seem near so composed as his dress suggested he should be. His eyes gleamed with something like desperation. "Simon — we've seen news of you, news of River. The media are suggesting you may have something to do with the broadwave that's gone out. Where are you?"

The boy swallowed once, but that nervous look had left his face as soon as the man answered (replaced by calculating calm). He took a deep breath, and, when he spoke, his voice was strong, his words coming slow and deliberate. "You told me you wouldn't come for me again. You told me I was on my own. _Did you mean it_?" (The last line not so much asked but spoken at the man.)

The man looked near-frantic. "Of course — of course I didn't mean it. You're my son, Simon. You'll always be my son. Where are you?"

The doctor's expression didn't change. "I'm not ready to tell you that just yet. And don't try tracing this wave. You won't be able to. The location markers and contents are thoroughly encrypted."

The man — Simon's father — shook his head. "Simon. That's not my intention."

He nodded once, quick. "Its not being your intention doesn't mean it won't happen. Are you being watched by the Alliance?"

Strongly: "No."

"I don't believe you."

The man pushed a hand through his hair. "They were — they were monitoring me, for a time. When you and River first disappeared. But since the broadwave —"

"I need to meet with you. Urgently. We should assume the Alliance is still watching you. I'll give you a location, and I'll come alone. I will not allow you to lead them to River."

"Simon, you're scaring me. What's this about? Are you both all right?"

A short nod. "We're fine." He stopped, then, and was silent for so long it seemed like maybe he'd changed his mind, wasn't going to say any more. But then his eyes shifted down and back up to meet the man's.

"It's about your daughter," the boy said.

The man closed his eyes. "You just said River was fine."

"She is." What he said then wasn't anything Mal would've ever expected. "It's not River I've come about. It's Inara."


	17. Chapter Sixteen

**Chapter Sixteen**

"It's Inara." Mal hadn't noticed the man's reaction, hadn't heard whatever Simon said after: it'd all seemed jumbled and confused. He'd stared at the screen but hadn't understood any of it after _that_: "It's Inara." Hadn't understood that, either; didn't know what he was supposed to feel: understanding? relief? anger?

So as the Cortex screen froze up (Simon caught in still, just as he was reaching up to pull off them gorram glasses) then went to snow, he made up his mind not to think about it — and went instead to find Jayne.

* * *

In those early days after Miranda, after he'd told her she'd go (_to_ go?), he'd taken to avoiding them all. Didn't want none of Simon and Kaylee's romancing; didn't know what to say to ease Zoe's grieving; didn't know how to stop River remembering or Inara leaving. The only one out of them who he felt he could manage was Jayne. Jayne was something simple. Did his job; took his pay; didn't try to make things more complicated than what they were. So, a couple days after he'd fought with her, when he still hadn't seen her again, he wandered down to the cargo hold to see what the merc was up to. (Fact that he could just about see the door of the shuttle from the middle of the hold's floor had nothing to do with it, he told himself, and near about believed it.)

The big man lay stomach-down on the floor of the hold, upper body disappearing through a hatch in the flooring (looking at wiring or somesuch) as Mal sidled up. Cleared his throat, and the man pulled himself out of the floor and looked at him, grease marking his forehead. Quirking an eyebrow: "Somethin' I can do for you, Mal?"

Rocked back on his heels. "Just seeing how things're coming along. On my ship." He talked to Jayne, but his eyes kept darting upwards toward the catwalk.

Jayne snorted. "For a fella so concerned 'bout his ship, you ain't been doin' too much fixin' on it."

He huffed with feigned indignation (eyes still darting up every now and again). "I'm overseeing! Has to be someone to oversee, doesn't there?"

With a cocked eyebrow: "For a fella overseein', you don't know much 'bout how the fixin's going."

Threw up his hands. "_Aiya_! All right, all right!"

Eyes up one last time and Jayne grunted, standing up, and followed his eyes up. Shaking his head: "Hell, you ain't even payin' attention. You didn't come here to see 'bout the fixin' at all. An' here I was thinkin' I was special, you comin' to see me an' all."

The hatch to the shuttle cracked open, and Mal was waving Jayne quiet. But she didn't come out of the shuttle alone; his first mate, tall and regal, her chin down, her thumbs tucked in the pockets of her pants, came out ahead of her, and then turned around to face her, still standing in the doorway. He couldn't see much — as it was, he could only just see them through the bars of the catwalk, metal and more metal — but he saw Zoe's hand in hers, just for an instant, then drop to her side, and he saw the Companion nod, just once, a small smile on her face, before Zoe turned and walked away.

Thought to himself then maybe she was right. Maybe he didn't know what Zoe needed. But she was wrong too, because asking wouldn't do a damned bit of good. Whatever it was Zoe needed, it just wasn't something he had to give.

* * *

He found Jayne in his bunk, groggy and just coming to. He crossed his arms and leaned back against the hatch as the merc slowly sat up. "You know, the girl wouldn't've knocked you out again if you'd had the good sense to notice I'd been _drugged_."

On the edge of his bed, Jayne rubbed his head and glared at him. "Right. 'Cause me figurin' out quicker that your bein' tired wasn't on account of you bein' up three days woulda done a whole heap of good once you were already out for the count." He waved his arm. "And you're one to talk 'bout gettin' knocked out. You're the one got knocked on your ass by a fella wears a necktie, drugs or not." A beat as Jayne's face scrunched up in thought. "Where is he, anyhow?"

He held his breath, trying to figure just how much to say. "Gone. But you and I have to get off this rock now, with or without him. We wait here, I conjure we won't much like the outcome of events."

He turned and ducked out of the merc's bunk then and made his way to the bridge. Trusted the big man would be on his heels, and he was: "You think we're in trouble?"

A glance back. "I think she is."

* * *

Then, in another time, when he had just found out in a mighty way what trouble was — but not where she was concerned — on another planet, Persephone, some time after he'd seen her reaching out to Zoe, squeezing her hand —

He stood on the ground beside Serenity, far below where she was perched on a bit of scaffolding, packing up paints. Behind her, his boat's name gleamed in front of a sunset of red and orange. He watched her for a time as she gathered up her skirts and paint-pots and worked her way down the ladder she'd gone up on, graceful even around the awkwardness of it all.

Three rungs from the bottom and she still hadn't noticed him. As one slippered foot left the rung that'd held it, he spoke. "Leavin' your mark on my boat, I see. Reckon you would have anyway."

As she swung her head around toward him, foot still extended into midair, he could see plain as day what was about to happen, though he never was quite sure what had caused it.

The expression on her face shifted from annoyance to surprise as the hand that held the rung by her head lost its purchase on the ladder. For a second, she was falling backward, and before he knew it he was under her and catching her, her foot still on the ladder rung, her back against his chest, his arms wrapped around her waist, her head in his left shoulder.

He tilted his chin down toward his chest, away from her, following her arm with his eyes to where her right hand still held tight to the paints. "Coulda just dropped those, you know. Most folks'd find that preferable to falling."

He didn't see but felt her turning her head toward him — felt her nose and forehead scrape over his cheek and jaw until her lips were just by his neck. Her voice was softer than normal, just a whisper, really, almost timid; it mostly relieved his fear she'd be carrying around anger from the fight they'd had last time he'd seen her. "Are you going to let me down?" Her breath puffed, warm, against his neck. He wondered if she could feel him shiver.

He swallowed; wasn't sure if his joke came out forced, what with how thick it felt on his tongue. "How'm I supposed to know you're not just gonna fall again? You start making this a habit, may be easier just to hold on to you."

Wrong thing to say, and then she was reaching out with her feet to find the ground and pulling away from him. Before he knew it, she was a safe few feet away, turned half-away from him, standing tall and still (almost too much on both counts, like she was concentrating on her posture). He'd given too much away, he reckoned, more than she wanted. Like always, she'd had to remind him.

Changing the subject: "It looks good."

She started, turned her head sharply toward him. "What?" (A question not in response to his, not, "_What_ looks good?" but something else, just a breath, like she hadn't heard him properly, like she'd thought he might've said something he hadn't. Her eyes were wide.)

He nodded up to Serenity's hull. "The branding you did up there. Looks good. Makes her look like something that maybe belongs out there, after all."

A little sigh from her, and he turned to look at her, her hair bundled on top of her head, her arms hugging her robe around her, like to ward off the cold. A vision marred just barely by a little smear of yellow paint across a cheek.

She wasn't looking back — just out at the black, like she did those late nights on the bridge, wistful-like. Another whisper: "We all belong out there."

He felt his brow furrow, and he'd have given just about all of it to know what she was thinking just then (though in retrospect it seemed clear enough). A deep breath of his own, and he followed her gaze out into the sky: "You're right. 'Bout a lot of things, I conjure, but about that especially." And then he swallowed and asked the question he'd had a mind to since he saw her up there. "Noticed you've been spending some time with Zoe of late."

She seemed to bristle somewhat, pulled her eyes back down to his and her wrap around her shoulders more tightly. "Yes, she's visited me. To talk."

Shook his head, quick, to keep her from thinking he meant things he didn't. "No — I don't mean to put you on edge. I'm grateful, truth be told. How is she?"

She inhaled slow, nodding and thinking. "She's doing better than I would have — thought." Pause. "Mal, if you were Zoe —"

Her words brought back their last fight, and he cut her off, his voice sharp. "I'm not Zoe. Think we've established that fairly well."

She closed her eyes, whether trying to calm herself or steel herself he couldn't tell. "What I mean is —" Lashes came off cheeks as she opened her eyes again and held his. "If you were in her — situation — do you think you might wish you'd never... never met him?"

He cocked his head, not quite sure what she wanted to know. "You reckon she does?"

She pulled her eyes down from his, down to the paints she still held in her hand. "No — no. I don't. But I wondered. About how a — how a person would feel."

He shrugged, trying and failing to guess her meaning. He spoke careful, wanting her to know he was trying. Trying to give her whatever it was she wanted. "I don't conjure anyone could know until it happened to them." A beat. "So if Zoe says she's glad at having spent the time she did with him, I expect that's your answer."

Then her eyes were on his again, and her lips were parted just slightly. And the outside around him felt so big, and he felt so small, hanging on whatever she was about to say. "Mal, there's something I need to —"

He wanted to hear whatever that thing she _needed_ was as much as he wanted to breathe, but one of the Operative's men was behind him, just then (_timing!_), at attention and conveying to him (for the Operative) a schedule of repairs.

When he turned back around, she was gone.

* * *

"What kind of trouble?"

Jayne stood behind him while he worked Grace's controls — not even trying to get her to fly, just to respond. But the instrument panel was dark. "Damn it!"

"I can't let you leave."

The voice was all around him. The man behind him groaned; muttered: "How many times've I said she was trouble..."

He took a breath. "River? We need to go. We need to get her away from here."

The voice: "I can't let you leave."

His fists clenched at his sides; tried his best to keep his anger out of his voice. "Because your brother said not to? He doesn't always know what's best. He doesn't always do what's right. You know that, little one, better'n anyone."

"It's for the best."

He couldn't take it anymore. Lifted his chin toward the sky, arms spread wide, and yelled with everything in him: "_What_ is?"

From across the ship, the sound of the main hatch sliding open, and the voice, calm as ever: "_This_."

* * *

(Much, much later, when it was all over, they would sit by themselves in the common room outside of Serenity's infirmary, both of them staring blankly down at now-cold cups of coffee, and Simon would tell him of the moment he first met her.

"I was four. Just barely old enough to be able to remember it now. It's one of the only things I remember from before River was born.

"She was there — he had brought her home, to our estate. 'Simon,' he'd said to me when he walked her in. 'This is Inara.' It was the only time he said her name. She didn't speak to me. She sat across from me in the playroom in a kimono, black ringlets held back by cloisonné clips, black slippers over white tights, watching the ground. She looked very delicate. I remember I was worried she might not like playing pirates. She didn't look like she would. And then I remember wondering what she thought of the necktie my father made me wear.

"They were arguing — my parents — in the parlor next door. Sometimes their voices were very loud, and her lip would quiver.

"She was an orphan, he was saying to my mother. He wanted to take her, to raise her with me. I remember that my mother told him that the Guild would keep her — because that's what the Guild did, she said, watch after its bastards. Then a door slammed, and he came back to us. His face was hard, and I thought he might yell. But he didn't. He picked her up, and as she wrapped her arms around his neck he whispered to her that they were going back to Sihnon and that she didn't have to worry about anything. That he'd always keep her safe.

"And what I remember most is — is being _glad_ when he took her away, because she'd caused them to be angry.

"A year later River was born, and it wasn't until many years later that I thought of her again. And later than that that it became important to me to find her. Because of River. Because River needed me to. But by then I'd forgotten her name.")

* * *

"Can someone explain to me what, in the name of all that's holy, is going on around here?"

Barely glanced back over his shoulder as he made his way in a couple strides to the infirmary, just long enough to ask the merc a question: "You have a gun?"

The other man rolled his eyes. "Mal, I _always_ got a gun."

He'd just gotten to her bedside when Simon came into the room. (A hand on her cheek, just for an instant, maybe to reassure himself she was still alive, before he turned to stand wide before the bed, like a shield.) The boy's eyes were dark and fierce as they angled toward Mal. Not so different in aspect to any of the other standoffs he'd had in his life. The difference was underneath the look of it: this time, the stakes of it mattered to him.

And behind Simon, the man from the Cortex screen, dressed as formal as he'd been in the wave, a cravat peeking out the top of his Sihnonian robe.

Beside him, Jayne stiffened, drew his weapon. "And just who the hell is this?"

Simon, his eyes still focused on Mal's, voice hard-edged: "This is my father."

Behind the doctor, the man tilted his head just a bit. "Captain Reynolds, I presume. I'm here to —"

"Your boy can speak for himself. Though I don't reckon there's much he can say for himself."

Simon's voice hard, insistent. Demeaning. "She needs help, Mal. You need to understand that. She needs more help than you can give her."

He didn't flinch. "You lied to me."

A slight nod. "About some things."

"About everything."

"I didn't tell you the whole truth. There's a difference."

"Did you tell her?" Silence, and he knew he'd caught the tail of something. One step forward. "I don't think you did. I don't think she knows."

(A shift beside him, and he could tell Jayne's gun arm had dropped — just a hair, but enough. "She don't know what, Mal? What the hell's going on?")

"You've been lying to her, too." Another step forward. "She thinks you're her friend, but you've just been using her. For years."

The boy's eyes sparked, and he bristled. "I've never lied to her."

A sharp laugh. "No. You just didn't tell her the whole truth."

"So what is this, Mal? You want to keep me away from her? You want to sacrifice her to prove a point?"

"No. I want you to do what we came for. We brought her here so you could figure out how to help her. But that don't explain to me why you felt cause to drug me and incapacitate my ship, and it sure as hell don't explain to me what _he's_ doing here."

Silence, stretching out. Probably just for a second but it felt interminable.

When the doctor finally spoke, it was with some mix of deliberation and, worse, resignation: "Mal, I can't help her. I never thought I could. But there are resources here. There's money here. There are scientists and hospitals. If there's any chance for her, it's here." A beat; the boy took a breath, and another; his brow wrinkled as he held Mal's eyes, like this was something he needed him to understand. "Mal, we brought her here to leave her here. On Osiris. With her father."


	18. Chapter Seventeen

**Chapter Seventeen**

One of the old religions from Earth-That-Was (he remembered from his studies, from before he'd stopped believing in everything) had had it that a pastor had to turn away would-be converts three times, to test their sincerity.

But if there was a reason he kept turning her away, it wasn't that.

When she first told him she wasn't sure about going back to her girls — her voice timid, the look on her face bashful as he'd ever seen — a warmness spread through him. Intoxicating, it was, and he went to the bridge beaming and spouted off to the little albatross some nonsense or other about love. Walking up into Serenity, whole again after Miranda, it had been so easy, for a little bit, to pretend that Zoe was fine, like she said she was, and that the Companion belonged with him, on his boat.

Bandaid was all it was, though. The Operative'd fixed up his boat — repaired all the rips, patched up all the tears — and for a little bit he could pretend none of it had happened. But only for a little bit. All that horror was still hidden right underneath the surface, like a wound festering.

He found her late one night — some time later — on Serenity's bridge, not in that seat on the left, where she usually did her star-gazing, but in Wash's chair (patched up, now, somewhat shabbily, but the same chair — another wound that festered). Feet up on the seat, arms wrapped, loose, around her knees, head leaned back into the chair as she fixed her gaze out the screen, she looked — thin, so thin; when had that happened? — she looked sad.

He looked out the freshly replaced screen, to where she was looking. In the distance on the little backwater moon where they were parked, he could just make out the silhouetted houses of the town where they aimed on delivering their goods in the morning. In the town center was the faintest glimmer of firelight, dancing merrily. He swallowed. "Thought you only came out here to watch the black."

She didn't start like he'd expected her to do — barely even moved. Almost like she'd been expecting him. She sighed and was quiet for a while. Just when he thought she wasn't going to respond at all: "_Jŭ tóu wàng míng yuè, dī tóu sī gù xiāng_."

"Poetry?"

"I find it a comfort."

A beat. "It's December."

She did look over her shoulder, that time. "Is this a not-so-subtle way of reminding me that I should be thinking of packing my bags?"

He shook his head. "No. No." He looked down at his hands; flexed them absently. They looked more worn than they had a month ago — or maybe it was his imagination. "Just thinking about your appointment. On Ariel. Don't know if I'll be able to get you there this year."

When she hadn't responded after a few seconds, he managed a glance at her. She was turned toward him, her eyebrows raised, her red lips slightly parted, her dark eyes shining. She looked surprised.

He shrugged. "What?"

She shook her head. "Nothing. Nothing. It's just that — I didn't expect you to —" She stopped.

He cocked his head; his voice came out harsher than he meant it to. "To what? To notice? You don't think I notice you?"

She colored slightly. "No. I know you — I know it's not that."

"Then you think I don't care."

"No. Mal — Mal, I'm sorry. It's kind of you to have remembered. But it's all right. I've —" A pause, longer than it should have been, and it was something else he could've noticed but didn't. "I've gotten an exception from the Guild."

He swallowed; schooled his voice calm. "You sure? I could still get you back, at least close enough for you to make your way to the Training House. Find a route in they won't be watching."

Quiet for a time, and his eyes turned back to his hands (a new scar on his left palm).

Suddenly her voice, higher than normal, breaking the silence: "Mal, do you want me to leave?"

_He'd know by what you said when he asked you to stay_. Closed his eyes; took a deep breath. "I could get you back. I know I could still get you back."

A few more beats of silence, and then he turned and left her to her fading light.

* * *

Thought himself to be a gorram stubborn bastard, and he reckoned most people who knew him did as well; but right then, his eyes moving back and forth between Simon and Gabriel Tam, it didn't take him more than an instant to realize that the doctor was right.

Simon must have seen his gun arm waiver, because he took a step closer. "Mal — if she goes back, she will die. You must know that."

His father nodded behind him, his gaze locked on Mal's. Slowly: "I think you love her, Captain Reynolds. And I think you know what you need to do. Sometimes the best thing we can do for the people we love is let them go."

The gun was by his side, the safety on. He took a deep breath and nodded. "You're right. She belongs here."

* * *

The next thing that happened he could hardly bear to think on, and it was in part that that was the reason he decided to let Gabriel Tam take her, after all.

Damned thing wouldn't have happened at all if he hadn't picked the wrong gorram moment to walk onto the bridge one evening after dinner, some days after he'd found her there, in Wash's chair. Happened onto something different, this time.

He heard her before he saw his second in command, his Zoe. Should've known to turn around right then, because it didn't seem right, but he never did manage to leave well enough alone. Pushed upon the hatch, slow and quiet, and what he saw threw him: Zoe, his warrior, kneeled down in front of that damned chair (and why in hell hadn't they just changed it out?), her hands braced against the seat, her head bowed as she heaved great silent sobs (lips pulled away from her teeth in a pained grimace; tears on her cheeks).

"Have you asked Zoe what she needs?" she'd asked him, and he'd had the gall to feel affronted. Zoe'd told him she was fine, hadn't she, after all? But here it was, plain as day what Zoe needed. Zoe needed Wash, and damned if he was the one thing she wasn't ever going to have again.

And he — he needed —

Quiet as he opened it, he pushed the hatch closed, and he went to her, because she was what he needed.

The shuttle was dim, lit just by a few candles. She was kneeled in front of a bowl of scented water, her back to him (bare from the waist up, the end of her sari pooled near her feet). She was bathing.

She started at the sound of the door sliding open and then shut behind him; pulled an arm across her chest and turned her head over one pale shoulder, her swan's neck free of her swept-up hair. Her eyes were calm, unsurprised, her lips parted just so much; she watched him as he took one, two steps across the room toward her.

Didn't know himself quite what he'd been thinking; didn't reckon he'd been thinking much at all. He kneeled behind her, one hand splaying itself across her naked belly, pulling her flush to him, the other cupping the back of her neck, and all he could think about was the sound of blood rushing in his ears. What he said was: "Don't want you to leave."

Thought he felt her shiver.

He didn't know quite how long they sat like that, his forehead buried in the crook of her neck, his eyes closed tight at the _thereness_ of her as she breathed in time with him. And he didn't know quite why the need that he'd kept at bay before (even if it reared its head time to time in messy displays of anger) had finally overcome him so completely. Maybe it was the sight of Zoe, her face showing all her pain, her chest heaving with sobs. Or maybe that was just a sorry excuse. Maybe he was just a selfish bastard. Whichever way, all he wanted was to be close to her, to hold her like this as long as she'd let him.

And then she dropped her arm from across her breasts to the hand splayed across her stomach, pressed him closer, and, quietly: "Yes, Mal." Answering a question he hadn't even realized he was asking.

After that, everything was a blur. His teeth on her shoulder; one hand on her breast; the other between her legs; her hands snaked behind her back, unbuckling his pants as she made low noises in her throat.

Knew it wasn't right, wasn't the way it was supposed to be. Would've been so much better, so much gentler, if he'd carried her to her bed and made love to her properly, like she was used to, instead of this, his forehead pressed against her shoulder as he mouthed words of reverence into her skin and thrust into her without art. But seeing her face would've meant seeing her pity, like the pity she'd had for so many other men.

When it was finished (her still shuddering), the reality of it all hit him. The shuttle: dingy and old without all the ornament it'd once had, smelling of the grease and metal her incense couldn't quite cover up. The persistent humming of old electronics he found so comforting normal times now buzzed too loud in his ear. And beyond the metal panels of the shuttle, darkness all around them. And _her_: red marks on her neck and shoulder, sari pushed up around her waist carelessly, her hair, wet with sweat and askance. She leaned forward on her hands as she fought to slow her breathing. _His_ darkness all around her.

The very first time he'd met her, he'd felt it, the wrongness of her being here. He'd asked her what she was running from. Two years gone by didn't make a bit of difference: she still didn't belong here, belong with him, no matter what he tricked her into thinking or feeling. "You'll ruin her, too," he'd said to Simon (but not to Simon). He would. He already was. It was what he did.

"_Nǐ bú shì rén_," she'd said to him once. She was right.

And he felt shame.

"I'm sorry." It came out a kind of gasping sob as he stood up (almost falling) and backed away, struggling with shaking fingers to clasp his belt buckle.

"Mal?" Her voice small, catching on the words. "Mal, what are you doing?"

As he turned to the hatch: "So sorry."

She'd turned her head toward him, and what he hadn't seen before: skin so pale; eyes ringed in black. (What her time here had done to her; what he'd done to her.) The last thing she said came rough and choked: "I'm not leaving you, Mal; don't you dare leave me."

But he already was, already pulling the hatch back and running out the door.

Didn't occur to him till later, as he sat crouched beside the toilet in his bunk, his head in his hands, that he'd never even kissed her.

* * *

"Mal, I think you'd best tell me what's going on, here."

He gestured with his head. "This here's Inara's father. Surely you followed that much, Jayne."

The merc looked at him askance but didn't lower his gun. "And so, what? You just gonna leave her here? Change your plans like that?"

Nodded once but kept his eyes on the Tams. "Call it a lesson in versatility."

The big man's eyes narrowed. "Correct me if I'm wrong, Mal, but weren't you just gorram lecturing us 'bout how it was she made a choice?"

"And I said it wasn't her choice to make."

* * *

The days crawled by. At the beginning, he avoided her. After that, he only let himself see her when the others were around. Moment she tried to say much of anything to him, there was some burning question he needed to ask Zoe, or some hilarious event he needed to retell. She stopped trying to talk to him.

Until he finally made the decision that one of the two of them should've made during her first few weeks on his boat, before any of this, any of this could've happened.

They'd just pulled off Santo (no coin to show for it, just cuts, bruises, and a good share of lessons about what life would be like out here; but _yī yán jì chū, sì mǎ nán zhuī_). Passed by her shuttle a time or two before he got the nerve to go closer. When he did, he heard Kaylee's voice drift out through the cracked hatch.

"You really gonna do this?"

"I'm sure, _mei mei_. Serenity's not the place for me."

In a rushed breath, like she was trying to convince her: "Whatever the cap'n did, I reckon he didn't mean it."

"He didn't do anything, Kaylee. It's just —" A beat. "Oh, _mei mei_, it's complicated."

"But, 'Nara, ain't everything worth anything complicated? Me and Simon, we're complicated, but —"

Firmly: "What you and Simon have is very special, Kaylee. He's a good man, and he loves you. Don't ever forget that."

And Kaylee's voice, low: "Just 'cause I got him now don't mean I don't still need you."

She didn't answer that, just paused; must've gestured at something. "I'm leaving that. Will you see that he gets it if I don't get a chance to tell him? And this is for you."

Her voice sad and dreamy at once: "Oh, it's —"

They both turned toward him when he pulled back the hatch (Kaylee holding a gown of purple and gold in front of her — a sheep on its back legs).

He cleared his throat. Didn't smile. "Kaylee, Inara and I need to have words."

The Companion reached out a hand and lightly touched the mechanic's arm. "Kaylee, you can stay."

He narrowed his eyes. "Kaylee, I need you in the engine room. Now put away that bit of frou-frou and see to your job."

The girl turned wide eyes back and forth between them, then ducked out. He waited till she left and took one, two steps closer to where the woman in front of him braced herself against the edge of her red sofa (wrists too thin, eyes still ringed, cheeks still pale; if he didn't know better he'd think it was Serenity making her sick, or him). "Seems we're of the same mind. Think it's best I let you out next port of call. I'll get you as close as I can to the Core, but you'll have to make some of the way on your own. You can still go back to your girls, I reckon — the Operative and his crew left your Training House in decent shape." A beat. "And if you want to keep whoring yourself around the galaxy, I'm sure you won't have a problem finding another ship to take you."

She tilted her head but kept her eyes on him; didn't look angry like she normally would've, like he'd been hoping she would. "_Lù yáo zhī mǎ lì, rì jiǔ jiàn rén xīn_."

Anger flared. "Don't quote your proverbs at me like I'm s'posed to find some sort of help in them. I ain't no horse, and I don't find riddles too useful, most of all them pertainin' to my heart."

A breath. Two. They watched each other. "Mal — I'm sorry that it has to be this way. But it's best. And I hope you won't think —"

He closed his eyes tight. Felt disoriented — couldn't properly understand what she was apologizing to him for. Then his eyes were open, and his jaw was set, and: "Wasn't another way it could've been. My momma always said all business arrangements come to an end, one way or another."

She dropped her eyes, and he thought he saw her arm quiver before she turned away from him (dismissing him). As he walked out, he thought he heard her whisper another proverb: "_Bùjiàn guāncái bù diàolèi_." Until faced with one's own coffin, one cannot despair.

But he did.

* * *

That was what he was thinking about, thinking about how every gorram goodbye he'd ever said in his life he'd done the _wrong way_ — his daddy, up and left when he was a boy, no goodbye at all; his momma, who he'd left with none too kind words, never to speak to her again; the soldiers he fought with, dying around him without warning; Wash, a leaf on the wind till he got a stake through his heart; and _her_, again and again her leaving and him not knowing how to do anything but let her, make her.

That was what he was thinking about (standing in front of Simon and Gabriel Tam and shoulder to shoulder with a confused Jayne), about how he could do it better this time, say goodbye to her proper, when Grace lurched.

He stumbled; watched as Simon lowered himself into a crouch, arms out, bracing himself, and then stood up again, slow, his eyes narrowed. "River. River, what do you think you're doing?"

A little laugh, and then her voice over the comm: "Oh, _Simon_. You know."

He shook his head, slow. "No, River. I don't know. Where are we going?"

"Ariel. Going to Ariel. Been there before. Now back again. I can help." A beat, and then, low and fierce: "I am a leaf on the wind. Watch how I soar." And another jolt, and they were flying, flying.

Thought he must've been gaping a bit as he watched Jayne's eyes darting back and forth across the room; watched Gabriel Tam, hands gripping the table of medical instruments beside him, eyes fixed upward; watched Simon sink down against the wall behind him. And then turned to watch her; saw a few small drops of blood where her IV had torn away from her arm when the ship had first moved. "Simon." When the boy didn't respond: "_Simon_."

Across the room, a rustling as the doctor stood. He sounded tired: "What?"

He bent over her, his face close to hers, nearly touching hers as he watched her; thought he saw her eyelashes flutter slightly. Whispered: "Can you hear me?" And then his hand (rough) on her cheek (smooth) — thumb grazing across her jaw. Just a breath against her skin: "Inara." A beat. "I'm here. Can you hear me?"

The doctor: "Mal, what is it?"

Turned his face away from hers but stayed near. To Simon: "I think she's waking up."

When he turned back, she was watching him.

* * *

_Translations_  
jŭ tóu wàng míng yuè, dī tóu sī gù xiāng: from a Chinese poem: 'lifting my head, I gaze on the moon; dropping my head, I think of home'  
nǐ bú shì rén: 'you're not human'  
yī yán jì chū, sì mǎ nán zhuī: Chinese proverb: 'horses cannot chase back the words you have said'  
lù yáo zhī mǎ lì, rì jiǔ jiàn rén xīn: Chinese proverb: 'over a long distance, you learn about the strength of your horse; over a long period of time, you get to know what's in a person's heart'  
bùjiàn guāncái bù diàolèi: Chinese proverb: 'not to shed tears until one sees his own coffin'


	19. Chapter Eighteen

**Chapter Eighteen**

He opened his mouth to say something, anything (_thank God, was afraid you'd never wake up again, thought I'd never talk to you again, knew I'd never kiss you —_). But before he could say any of the hundred things about to tumble out of his mouth, the doctor pushed past him and, as he whispered to her instructions in his steady doctor's voice, pulled out the tubes that'd given her breath. And then she was coughing, the boy propping her up and rubbing her back, and it was like finding her all over again. _Simon_.

* * *

If all had gone according to plan, he would've delivered her to Three Hills two weeks after that last conversation, about a month and a half after he found her that night on the bridge. A month and a half after she'd made the decision (_jŭ tóu wàng míng yuè, dī tóu sī gù xiāng_) that had brought them here.

It was mid-February.

She made it nearly to March.

That last week he spent mostly on his bridge, occasionally listening to her stilted conversations with Simon over the comm (old habits die hard, especially with Wash not being around to remind him in his pointed way he had no business on that frequency). Which was exactly what he was doing on the last day.

In that Sihnonese dialect he hated, because it was theirs: "What did Kaylee tell you?" Her voice, tired.

"It doesn't matter what she told me. But for what it's worth, I couldn't be happier. It was — it was _insanity_ for you to think you should stay. He's not worth that." As if to himself: "No one would be." Louder: "How are you feeling?"

An edge in her voice: "What do you mean?"

A puff of air. "I don't know why you refuse to talk to me about this. As if pretending I don't know will —"

She cut him off with a voice wavering some. "Simon — Simon, last week was my mother's birthday. I forgot. I just — forgot." A beat, and then, hurried: "Let's not talk this way. Come to my shuttle. I have something for you."

The boy's voice had risen; he sounded nervous. "I'm on my way."

The sound of him disconnecting; then she coughed, and: "Mal?"

He flipped the switch and tried to savor the hollow feeling in his gut.

* * *

He watched, and the doctor kept on rubbing her back as she coughed (weak coughs, no force behind them). Then he was shining a light into her eyes, but she was resisting, looking to the side unseeingly, reaching out a hand. "Mal? Where are you?"

A step forward (with the doctor still between them, taking all sorts of measurements), and his hand was out, and he was touching the fingers of her shaking hand. She watched him — but past him, like she couldn't quite focus. And then (damned if he was in the doctor's way) he was kneeled beside the head of the bed, fingertips touching her face, her hair, her nose, her eyelids, her lips, like to prove to himself she was really there, all the while repeating like a mantra: "I'm here. I'm here. I'm here."

* * *

He tried to wipe that overheard conversation from his mind (_he's not worth it_), to concentrate on other things (the next few days' course; whatever it was Kaylee was fixing in the kitchen). But not fifteen minutes later, the doctor was standing at the entrance to the bridge.

"Mal, do you know where Inara is?"

He felt his temperature rise. The boy had some nerve. "Reckon you'd know better than I would where she is. And I don't appreciate being put in the middle of whatever _business_ you have with her."

His voice, stern but hurried: "Mal, you're not listening to me. She asked me to come to her shuttle —"

"And I certainly don't need to know about your comings and goings."

The boy ignored him; barreled on ahead. "— but she's not responding. Something's wrong. Very, very wrong. I need you to go to her shuttle."

Finally, he turned to him; let out a long breath and began, his tone (anger gone out of it) betraying, he reckoned, his weariness (his _resignation_): "Listen. If you don't get by now that I'm the last person she wants to —"

"No. You're wrong. You're the _first_ person she wants to see." A beat, and then his voice, louder, commanding, his arm thrown back in the direction of her shuttle: "Go _now_."

He went; he ran the whole way.

* * *

(He and Simon, much later, sitting on that yellow sofa, an image of her in ringlets and cloisonné clips dancing through his mind. It would make him smile in spite of himself.

Simon: "I didn't think of her again until I was thirteen, maybe fourteen. Too clever for my own good, or maybe just enough. I broke through the security on my father's source box. I'm not sure what I expected to find, but I didn't expect — letters. To her, spanning a number of years. And her polite, if detached, notes of reply, just the sort that might be sent by a child, a child who had been drilled in decorum but didn't fully understand what it was she was meant to feel. Which, after all, is what she always was.

"I was —" A beat. "Shocked doesn't begin to describe it. The letters, they weren't terribly revealing, mind you — he was writing to a young girl. He asked her about the Training House, what she was learning, what she most enjoyed. And he wrote to her about her mother, about what she had been like. But — it seemed clear to me that — that he loved her, and that he had been very much in love with her mother.

"I didn't read very much. I couldn't bring myself to. I closed the source box and erased my entrance key. But I could never get those letters out of my mind, not entirely; and they eroded my conception of what my family was. I resented her — this girl that I didn't even know — for a long time because of that.

"It didn't occur to me until later, until it mattered, that in all those letters he had encrypted her name. I knew that she was a Companion — or would have been, by that point. I knew that she was born on Sihnon. I knew that her mother was dead. But I didn't know her name.")

* * *

Whatever the reason, maybe his tone of voice, maybe his expression when he sent him (commanded him) to her shuttle, he believed the boy's warnings, and so he was afraid.

But the fear he felt while he pounded on the hatch of her shuttle wasn't like anything he'd experienced in his life. "I'm not afraid to die," she'd told him once, and he understood, because death wasn't a thing he much feared, either. His death, leastways.

Those encounters he'd had with Reavers, or with the Alliance, or with Niska, that sadistic _shén jīng bìng _, none of them made him afraid. They made him _mad_, maybe — but not afraid. Not of the pain, and not of death. Neither did they make him afraid for his crew. Not really. Maybe that made him a bastard, but the way he figured everyone on his boat understood the dangers. They'd accepted them when they signed up, and they could leave anytime.

And so the fear he felt while he was pounding, pounding on her hatch and calling for her, it was something unfamiliar, and something not quite explicable.

Maybe it was something selfish. Maybe he was afraid of what his world would look like if she weren't in it — somewhere in it.

It was fear that kept him from pushing the hatch open right away, the way he would normal times. But it took none too long (though not before his pounding and yelling had started to draw spectators below) to realize the cost of his fear was her, if Simon's words were true, and so he threw back the hatch and near tumbled through the entry.

The red curtain she'd once hung to create a kind of formal entry had never reappeared after she did, and so when he opened the hatch the whole shuttle was there laid out before him. And it still looked dingy, and hummed too loud, and smelled like engine grease and soldered metal. But it smelled like _her_, too; and all the trinkets she'd set up — he'd never quite noticed before that, while they didn't _mask_ the shuttle the way they had when she'd seen clients here, they — they seemed to fill in her gaps; and, normal times, that hum would've blended in with the sound of her voice and, beneath that, her breath.

That's what he was trying to hear as he rushed to her, kneeled beside her (her limbs splayed at awkward angles at just the spot where she'd been sitting, bathing, and where he'd held her, and more, those weeks before). He was listening for her breath; watching her chest for the rise and fall. (From a distance, like he was scared to touch her.) And whispering, fierce: "Inara. Inara. Inara."

Probably all that took less time than it felt to — but his whole body felt sluggish, like the gravity had suddenly increased, and it was like he was seeing it all from a long way off in the black. And he saw himself scooping her up (her head lolling back against his arm, her feet dangling bonelessly), and walking — one step, two steps, three steps, lumbering — out the hatch of her shuttle; saw himself (staring blankly out across Serenity's hold), and her in his arms, both of them framed by the halo of the doorway.

It was Zoe pulled him back into reality, from where they'd all gathered below the catwalk. "Mal? Jesus, Mal, what's wrong with her?"

That was all it took, and he was back there, in his body, blinking hard and fast. Muttered: "Don't know. Don't know." He turned fast and ran as fast as he could without risking hurting her, his heart pounding, loud, in his chest, in his ears.

To the infirmary.

To where Simon was already standing, gloved and waiting, like he knew what was coming.

To where Jayne was standing, and lifting her out of his arms, and laying her back onto the infirmary sickbed.

To where Zoe was standing beside Simon, waiting for instructions.

To where he wasn't needed, not even a little bit.

* * *

It had been the same when he first came to the infirmary, after she'd woken up. But now — now, as she reached out her hand and asked for him, _him_ — he dared to put a bit of stock in what the boy had said: he, God help him, was the first one she wanted to see.

He let himself sink into it for a bit, as he knelt beside her, as he danced the tips of his fingers over her face like he was blind. Until she pulled him back into the here and now: "Mal?" Her eyes tracking his face closely, trying to read him. "Mal, where am I? Where are we?"

He swallowed; tried for a joke: "Figured it might be more fun to live on a boat the size of a sardine box. We've downsized."

Her eyes had widened with something like alarm. "Oh, Mal. You didn't." Could tell by her look she didn't mean the downsizing. "Oh, Mal, of all of the naive, _bái mù_ —"

He sat up. "Now wait just one gorram minute. I for one don't see savin' your life as all that _bái mù_ a thing to do. You can be mad all you like. Know I should've told you. But I talked to Simon —" (a glance back at the boy, who looked like he wanted to vanish into the floor) "— and it just made sense, to —"

She shook her head. "I'm not angry at you."

A double take. With surprise: "You're not?"

"I've been stupid. I always thought —" A small cough; her voice rough and dry. "I always thought that by — by keeping this to myself, I was protecting —" A beat. "The people around me. I suppose I didn't count on meeting someone with such a _shǎ_ sense of nobility. A _shǎ_, self-destructive sense of nobility. I'm sorry. This is my fault."

Too much; wasn't something he wanted her to dwell on. Certainly didn't want her to blame herself. What was done was done. _Yī yán jì chū, sì mǎ nán zhuī_, nor make so you said ones you should've. And so with a small half-smile, he threw back an arm toward the doctor. "Him! He's got the nobility, too. It's going around."

It earned him a half-smile. "So where are we?"

* * *

And then he just watched her. Watched her dying.

* * *

It was Simon who told her; told her what he'd meant; told her about River; told her where they were going (and that there was a part new to him, as well). Neatly skipped over the part about her father, who seemed to've slipped off (likely for the same reason; they were both cowards, by his reckoning).

Simon, just finishing: "And so I think — I think River thinks — that if Jayne and Mal can give us cover on Ariel, River and I can get what we need from Blue Sun's White Sun facility at St. Lucy's."

Her brow furrowed: "Simon, will someone be staying here? With me?" A beat, and she filled in one of the pieces he wasn't giving her. "Simon, is someone else on board with us?"

From across the room, just inside the hatch: "Inara, I'm here."

* * *

Watched her dying with empty hands, but prayed — God Almighty, did he pray, like he never had in his life — prayed that she wouldn't.

* * *

Her eyes were wide, but there was something cold in them.

"Inara, I'm —"

"_Wǒ zhīdao shéi nín shì_. Simon."

"_Shìde_?"

"Will you let me talk to Mal?"

An awkward nod. "Yes. We'll go talk to River. But we need to be quick. We're only three worlds out from Ariel."

When they'd gone out, quiet for a time. She was looking down away from him, at the floor. In a soft voice: "Don't leave. Don't go to Ariel."

He frowned. "Hate to tell you, but I don't think there's a thing in the 'Verse that can stop that Tam girl once she's set her course."

Her voice, stern: "No. I mean you. Don't go to Ariel."

He closed his eyes; pinched the bridge of his nose, trying to wrap his head around what she was asking him to do (not to do). He shook his head. "If this is about what you said before, about fault, need you to know I'd — give you up —" At her look: "What I mean is — I'd give up seeing you, day in, day out — give up being near you — forever — just to know you were out there, alive, somewhere in the 'Verse. Don't need you to be near me. I just — just _need_ you — to _be_. And if going to Ariel is the way I can see that happens —"

A small smile, and she reached a hand out, her fingers just grazing his cheek. "But Mal, that's not what I need. I don't need you to save me, Mal. I never have. I need you to stay with me. Just stay."

He tilted his head. "This about him? Because, if it is —"

"It's about you."

Silence for a time, and then, his voice small, like a child: "Don't fight?"

"Don't fight."

He swallowed. "When I was talking to them, to the crew, before we left, I told them that this — this thing you decided — that it wasn't your choice to make. Conjure I was wrong about that. Weren't nobody's but yours. But Inara —" Choked a bit on his words. "Maybe fighting's not what you need, but fighting's all I know how to do."

That smile again. "I'll try to fight for both of us. Just give me this one thing, Mal."

And it surprised him (maybe it shouldn't have) just how hard it was — how, despite how much he wanted to give to her, how he wanted to give her the universe and himself and everything in between, he didn't want to give her this. It was like she was asking him to give up his whole world — not just the fighting (all he knew), but her, too (all he wanted). And, anyway, as a trade it just didn't seem fair. She was maybe risking her life for — what? A day of his lousy company? Two? Three? It seemed a thing not worth its cost.

Except that she wanted it.

He sat, eyes closed, trying to work it through in his mind while she waited. Found himself holding her hand against his lips (eyes still squeezed tight, forehead wrinkled), so that his teeth grazed against her knuckles as he muttered, over and over, like he was still trying to convince himself: "Okay. Okay. Okay."

She pulled back on her hand, and he opened his eyes, surprised; but she wasn't pulling away, she was pulling him toward her, and then he was kissing her for the first time, and it was joy, joy, joy, and he knew that it didn't matter how much pain it caused him: he could never, ever say no to her.

"Love you so much." It came out a gasp.

Then, softly, carefully: "I love you, too, Mal. Thank you."

And maybe fighting wasn't all he knew how to do, after all.

* * *

_Translations_  
jŭ tóu wàng míng yuè, dī tóu sī gù xiāng: from a Chinese poem: 'lifting my head, I gaze on the moon; dropping my head, I think of home'  
shén jīng bìng: 'someone who is insane'  
bái mù: 'stupid'; literally, 'white-eyed, blind'  
shǎ: 'foolish'  
yī yán jì chū, sì mǎ nán zhuī: Chinese proverb: 'horses cannot chase back the words you have said'  
wǒ zhīdao shéi nín she: 'I know who you are'  
shìde: 'yes'


	20. Chapter Nineteen

**Chapter Nineteen**

He stood back, quiet, while Simon talked to her. Her father stood, just as quiet, in the doorway (River behind him, holding onto his arm and peering around him; it put him at ease, truth told: she must've felt there was something _right_ about him).

Talked to her? Talked _around_ her might've been something more accurate: the boy strode robotically about the infirmary, packing up items, probably most arbitrary, making more noise than what was necessary. She answered all his questions: told him about Blue Sun, how the company had approached her about experimental treatments just before her twenty-second birthday; told him about the facility she'd gone to and the doctor who'd treated her; told him (somewhat too clinically for his liking) about the procedures and the tests and the full day afterward she'd had to spend in bed, every time, because of the pain.

"But Simon." Her tone changed: low, now, and soft. "Simon, it seems foolish to me. I don't quite understand what you're hoping to accomplish, what you think you actually _can_ accomplish that would be worth —"

A loud clatter as the tray of tool he was holding connected with the metal flooring (thrown, not dropped). "Can't you just —"

Sharply: "What, Simon?" He didn't respond; hands on his hips, chin angled down (a flop of hair over his forehead), he was struggling to calm himself. "Can't I _what_, Simon?"

"I know this must matter to you. I know you must not want to die. I know there must be _something_ out there that matters to you enough for that to be true. But damn it, Inara, if it doesn't sometimes seem like it's all been trained out of you."

The growl that came out of his chest wasn't something he was in control of, but his wanting to protect her trumped about everything at that point: "_Watch it, Simon_."

The boy's head whipped toward him. "Don't pretend you don't know what I mean, Mal. Don't pretend you haven't thought the same thing to yourself every day since the day you met her."

He didn't say anything. Didn't know what to say, and, besides, it was her that spoke up, fast, as the boy was picking up the instruments he'd scattered, her voice low and tinged with some bitter flavor he'd never heard before: "But you and I are just alike, aren't we, Simon? We know all the same dances."

The doctor watched her, disbelieving, for an agonizing second or two; then shook his head, blew out a breath in frustration, was just turning to leave when she stopped him (her voice something gentler): "Simon." He stopped; turned first his head, then his whole body, and finally took the two steps it took to reach her. She touched his hand, him staring down at her fingers. "If — if —" A beat. "I have something for you. It's on Serenity. In the drawer in the chess board. Tell me you'll look for it."

His mouth was open, just a touch, like he wanted to respond, but his chin was quivering, and it seemed to Mal it took the boy something to get those few words out: "I'll look for it." Because he couldn't say no to her, either.

Then everyone was gone, everyone but him and her, and he walked over to her and touched her face (dry; no tears), and it was joy and sorrow all at once.

Didn't fully occur to him till later that she hadn't exchanged more than a tense sentence with her father. Didn't fully occur to him till it was too late, till she never would again.

* * *

("What she had for me — what she wanted to give to me — it was a letter. From my father." He would lean over his knees, sitting on that yellow couch, blinking fast like he was trying not to cry. "And sometimes I wish — I wish that I'd seen it, before — because then —

"After I decided to rescue River, after my father had turned me away, I looked for her. It wasn't so very exciting as it might seem. No glamorous spy work, just a fair amount of research into the society news signals from around the time I imagined she was born, and from around the time I thought it was that he had brought her to our home. Tracking down her mother wasn't as hard as I'd expected: she was quite famous in her day, and Sihnon noticed her death. Mourned, you might even say.

"Her daughter's name was Inara Serra. I knew that, now. But by the time I was ready to get River — she had left Sihnon. She was gone."

Quiet for a time, then, and Mal wouldn't quite know whether Simon was finished. Then: "That letter — he sent it to her too late, after she'd left Sihnon. It didn't finally make it to her until much later. Maybe even not until River and I were already here. I'm not sure.

"I've read it now — read it so many times. It said —" His voice would hitch. "'He may come to you. In fact, it is likely. If he does —'" A sigh. "It asked that she take care of me. 'He is your brother,' he wrote. 'Tell him that his father loves him and is sorry.'"

With a slow shake of his head: "It's just what he said to me about her before he died.")

* * *

As a sentry, he was _gǒu shǐ_. Should've been on the bridge scanning the read-outs. Protecting her. But he couldn't stop watching her, as he sat beside her, her eyes opening and closing as she drifted in and out of sleep. After an hour or some-such watching her, he drifted off himself, his head pillowed on one folded arm (the other hand thrown across her stomach, tangled in her fingers).

When he woke up (not sure how long he'd been asleep), she was watching him. She'd shifted to her side, curled up and facing him, her hands under her cheek. He thought he heard her whisper something. He blinked. "What?"

A sigh. "He's right about me."

He closed his eyes; tried to figure out what she was saying. "What? Him? No. He's not right."

She swallowed. "But he is." (Her eyes wide, unguarded. She spoke slowly, carefully.) "I don't understand what I'm supposed to be feeling right now. About me. About you. I don't know how to do this with you, Mal. I never learned."

The first words came to his mind to say were flippant and defensive, words meant to guard where it wasn't time nor place for guarding. The second thing that came to his mind, the true thing, was what he said. Reaching up, absently pushing her hair behind her ear: "Well —" He swallowed; his tongue felt thick in his mouth, his words hard to put together. "I conjure you're meant to talk, and I'm meant to listen. At least, I can't think of a thing in the 'Verse I'd like better right now."

With a wicked gleam in her eye: "Yes, I'd imagine it would be a welcome relief, what with all the talking _you_ do."

The grin that split his face took him by surprise. "Don't make me regret my words, woman."

She didn't tell him everything just then, but pieces. The other bits he'd put together slowly, over time — some with her help, some without her — because it was important to him, to know what it was she'd been.

* * *

Her mother had told her once that, the day she was born, impassive Buddha himself wept with both joy and sorrow.

She could count on one hand all of the other memories she had of her mother, she told him at some point — true memories, not memories conjured up from a few-seconds-long capture stored in her nightstand. She'd started her training early, sent to the Training House when she was just four, and so she didn't see much of her mother those last two years (when she was dying). She told herself now, all these years later, that that was probably what the woman wanted.

Things she remembered (or so she said):

The smell of her mother's hair.

A few songs sung at bedtime.

Waking from a nightmare into a pair of strong arms.

And she remembered the dying, those last few days, when her House Mistress had insisted on sending her to the hospital to be with her. So she remembered the last words her mother said to her (them she'd said to Simon), and they stayed with her.

The things she knew about her mother were a heap more: things she'd been told by her teachers in Sihnon; articles she'd seen while scanning through old information from the image services; letters _he'd_ written her. Knowing such things wasn't the same as knowing _her_ though, and it certainly wasn't the same as _having_ her. And so, if she could say she had a family, it was the Guild.

* * *

He wrinkled his brow as he traced blue veins on the back of her hand. "What about him?"

A beat. A sigh. "He's just a man."

"He's your father."

"You of all people should know that trust doesn't come that cheaply."

That was one of the first real things about her he learned: that that coldness about her that he'd felt so damned wounded by, time to time — it was her armor. It was how she protected herself. And she was taking it off for him.

* * *

The news feeds didn't tell her what it was that killed her mother (though they speculated plenty, as they tend to when the mighty fall). Neither did the Guild (she never was quite sure what they knew and what they didn't). She was fifteen when she first worked up the nerve to ask her doctor if she'd get sick someday, like her mother had. A day of the tests, the results sent to her in an encrypted file a week later, and she knew what her mother'd known all the time. Knew why her mother, the first time she'd held her in her arms, had wept with joy and sorrow.

* * *

Hours later, and he was lying facing her on that narrow infirmary bed, knees and hands just touching, watching her watching him. A snippet of conversation:

"You know I'm sorry. Sorry 'bout what I did. About how I left. About it all." (His voice, rough.)

She ran a finger over his jawline (she'd been touching him, without thinking, for hours, with some kind of wonderment that made no sense to him — because it was what he felt when he touched her). "I understood."

With a self-deprecating smirk: "Reckon you did. Don't suppose it's any mystery that men want you."

A cough. "Hmm. No. I meant that I understood why you left. Exactly what it is that you want is more of a mystery to me than you might imagine."

"You denying that men want you, Miss Inara?"

"No. I'm saying that what you want is different."

A raised eyebrow. "And what's that?"

Her fingers on his cheek, now; her eyes wide. "You want everything."

Silence for a moment; another. He let out a breath. "I want whatever you want to give me."

With a satisfied hum in her throat: "That's what I want, too."

* * *

She'd been foolish, she told him. Thought if she had enough money, saved enough money, she could buy her health. It didn't work out that way. What she bought was a place in a drug trial, a trial for a drug that would never go to market, was never meant to go to market, that would always be sold in back alleys and dank basements. On the street it was called the fountain of youth. In the lab it was called NX-15972. In the Guild it was strictly forbidden. She thought it might buy her time.

She received her first yearly treatment when she was twenty-two, five years younger than her mother had been when she died. She'd received her last, her seventh, the December before Miranda. But she never found a cure.

* * *

Still facing each other, but closer now, his leg thrown gently across her hips, his hand on her cheek. "When'd you first think that you and me — we might _be_ something?"

A breath. Softly: "Only just very recently."

Tried to stifle his disappointment. "Oh?"

She smiled; gave his shoulder a playful push. "I don't mean to say I'd never _thought_ of you." A beat. "In less than appropriate ways." Color in her cheeks. "At less than appropriate times." Hurrying: "But I only thought very recently — after Miranda — that it might be something more than just a flight of fancy."

He grinned. "A flight of fancy? Well why don't you indulge me, Miss Inara, and tell me when the fancyin' first started."

(Her cheeks nearing scarlet.) "Umm. You know."

Shook his head. "No, I don't reckon I do."

"It was a conversation — in the dining room — you asked me about being a Companion —"

He wrinkled his brow, his tone teasing. "Did I, now? Don't rightly remember. Don't think I've given a second thought to such a conversation."

Her lips were quirked up, her eyes lidded. "You asked me about seduction. You asked me how somebody I was with — how he'd ever know if I — if I loved him. No one had ever asked me. I'd never asked myself. But I realized — that what you said — I realized that I wanted you to want me to stay."

* * *

So many reasons she'd left Sihnon. To avoid expulsion from the Guild. To escape the pity of her sisters. To evade the media, its speculation and harassment. To see the universe. To feel something real before she died.

* * *

"Are you scared right now?" A beat. "Because I'm scared. Won't lie to you. And I know you always say you're not — not afraid — but Jesus, Inara, I am."

She closed her eyes (looked so different without makeup, her eyelids pale, her eyelashes delicate, the barest dusting of freckles across her cheeks, but beautiful, radiant). "I'm — I'm afraid for you."

He smiled; ran a finger absently over her hand. "Best be afraid for Simon, Jayne, and River."

"I am — well, not for Jayne —" (A small smile.) "But that's not what I mean. I'm afraid, because I don't know what you might do after I —" She dropped her eyes.

He bowed his head; didn't quite know what to say. To tell her she wasn't going to die wouldn't do justice to what she was asking him. To tell her he'd be fine would be a lie. And so he said all he could say. "I'll be here for you as long as you need me to be."

Silence for a time. He closed his eyes and listened to her breath. When he opened his eyes again, her eyes were wet. She bit her lip; whispered: "I'm so tired, Mal. But I'm afraid to sleep."

And what she was asking him, really asking him: she was asking him to stay, without her. "You sleep if you need to." (So hard to say; tears on his cheeks.) "I'll be here when you wake up." Because he could never, ever say no to her.

* * *

She wasn't sure when it happened. Maybe it had to do with _that_: the feeling something real. Sometime after she left Sihnon, after she came to Serenity, she came to terms with her death.

* * *

Seventeen hours after they'd left, they were back. Or, to be more accurate: Simon, River, and Jayne were back. He heard the main airlock come to life, and he shook himself out of sleep (wrapped in her arms).

Beside him, she didn't move.

"Jesus. Inara. Inara."

Behind him, movement: the boy pushing his way in. Around him, movement: the boat lurching slightly as it undocked. The doctor's voice. "Move, Mal." At his hesitation: "_Move_."

Then he was away from her, giving the boy space, trying to keep track of what he was doing. And the things he was doing scared him: he felt her wrist, and then her neck. "How long has she been like this?"

Muttering, over and over: "Don't know —"

Felt a hand on his arm, and he looked to the side, and there was Jayne, his face full of sympathy. "Doc knows what he's doing, Mal. Anyone can help her —"

He looked back at her. Simon had bared her shoulder and ribs for the set of paddles in his hands; without being asked, Jayne had taken his place behind her head, holding her arms to steady her. "Clear." Paddles on her bared skin, and her body jumped. Then Simon was feeling her neck again with one hand, and, before he had time to even look away, the boy's other hand had plunged a needle into her chest.

A gasp from the table, small and soft, and Simon was talking to Jayne, gesturing to the black bag he'd been holding as he walked in the door (Jayne handing over a set of four syringes, two of which Simon emptied into her inner elbow, two into the muscle of her upper arm).

She was blinking, slowly, and looking up at him (her brother) as he leaned over her and touched her hair. "I thought I'd lost you."

She tried to speak, but her voice was rough. It came out a whisper. "I think you almost did."

A deep breath, and he stood; worked to collect himself through the methodical rhythms of medicine. He connected her to an IV (his long fingers doing work that came to him second nature). "You'll feel pretty bad for a few days. Muscle aches. Headaches. Not so different to what you're used to, except perhaps some pain in your chest as well." With one more injection into her IV tubing: "Now, sleep. We'll be home before you know it."

* * *

She'd be thirty this year. And she'd have lived three years longer than her mother had.

* * *

The albatross stayed at Grace's helm for the whole flight. A leaf in the wind, she might've said.

Sitting with Simon in the ship's little kitchen, drinking tea (the non-poisoned variety).

"It's not a magic bullet, Mal. It's three years. Three years' worth of NX-15972."

He closed his eyes. "Three years." He let out a long breath.

"There's more than that. I was able to access a lab. I've run DNA tests far more advanced than I could have on Serenity. I hacked into Blue Sun's servers and have up-to-date reports on its research. And the three years — it's not a lot, Mal, but it's time."

He turned the number over in his mind; felt its acid bite on his lips. "Three years. You know, it's longer than I've known her. It's not long enough. But I reckon nothing could be."


	21. Epilogue

**Epilogue**

Any other time, he'd've been disappointed with the anticlimax that was their trip back to Beylix, back to Serenity. Any other time, he'd've been the slightest bit upset that there were no near-misses, no gun-play, no death-defying mid-air heroics. Whether this trip was different, or he was different, wasn't no matter: what mattered was that _something_ was different, and every hour that passed by with no news, he counted another blessing.

He'd slept some (a blessed relief) but spent the rest of the time sitting beside her, watching her chest rise and fall. But where before he'd watched with fear, _terror_, that each movement would be her last, now he watched rejoicing over those to come. Not enough of them, to be sure, but _some_, and he'd savor each breath she took, for as long as he could.

"She didn't want you to leave her. 'Not leaving you; don't you dare leave me.' You understand, don't you?"

He turned his head toward the infirmary hatch, where she stood like a dancer, feet turned outward like she was about to plié, left arm rounded down toward her hip, head tilted to the side, long hair draped over her shoulders. He shook his head. "Scares me how much you see, sometimes."

Again, her voice up a notch, a little desperate: "You understand, don't you?"

A nod. "I understand. And I conjure you know better than anyone how grateful I am."

"You didn't want to leave her."

"And I don't ever want to." (His voice low and fierce.)

Her eyes, on his, like she was trying to see into his soul. "No. Never."

* * *

A day later, and they were home. Would he have been able to say that if she weren't there? He wondered, and would from time to time in months to come. Could the caverns of his boat still be home without her?

Simon had kept her sedated through most of the trip, to help her through the pain of the treatment — had only brought her around a few hours before they'd touched down. The boy'd asked Mal to be alone with her, then, and he'd complied — had watched through the single window in the infirmary as Simon spoke to her, sitting beside her, holding her hand in both of his. He saw her face fall just enough to tell him that the story she told herself wasn't true: she wasn't a woman ready to die.

After her brother had left (a quick nod to him as he walked past), he'd gone in. Her eyes on his, questioning. And then quiet: "Did he tell you? Tell you what he told me?"

He dropped his eyes. "He told me."

"I should —" She let out a shuddery breath. "I should be grateful. It's more than I ever hoped for."

And then his hand was around hers, tight: "It's less than we deserve."

* * *

There were times that came to mind when they'd walked next to one another, her supporting him when he'd been injured (shot, most times), him leaning on her not so much because he needed it but because he _wanted_ it. As she leaned against him as they walked through the Beylix dust and sun toward Serenity's gangplank, he wondered if she felt the same way.

* * *

She did what was her duty (because that was who she was): she sat with them in the living area off the galley, all of them around her, listening to her say the things she thought they wanted to hear.

River sat at her feet, gazing up at her, devotion plain in her eyes. Jayne stood to the side, grinning each time she described his feats of bravery (such as were told to her by the man himself). Simon held Kaylee on the sofa; she was crying, the boy gazing off at nothingness with a peculiar look of not-quite-satisfaction on his face, like he was already on to the next problem. And Zoe: Zoe looked happy (wearing a peaceful little smile) for the first time in too long.

He stood across the room from them. Arms crossed over his chest, he leaned against the cooker (right in the spot he'd been that very first night, when she hardly knew him, and he knew her less), and he watched her: watched her perfect posture, the crease beside her eye, the pink that had come back into her cheek, the way she bowed her head when she smiled, the curl of hair, missed from the rest, that danced against the back of her neck. Watched, and wasn't scared of being caught watching her, because, for three years, she was _his_ to watch. And so when he felt Zoe's eyes on him and he turned his toward her, he just smiled — a tired but joyful smile.

His warrior stretched her arms wide, then, and gave a dramatic yawn. "Think we'd best be letting Inara get some rest. Reckon she's earned it. I'd say we all have." A smile thrown his way as she bent down to whisper a few parting words in the Companion's ear, and she was off, the rest of them not far behind.

Quiet all around them, then, and she herself was standing and walking toward him, one step at a time, something a little devilish in her eye. He didn't move, just watched (his lips quirked into a smile) as each footfall brought her closer, till she was standing right under him, her head tilted up and to the side. Her voice low: "Are you happy to be home, Captain Reynolds?"

His, rough, his eyes studying hers: "Happy so long as you're here."

She reached both hands toward him; he met them with his own, and then she was backing away, pulling him out of the galley and down Serenity's central artery toward his bunk. He felt some surprise. "Not to yours?" But she just shook her head, and so he followed her, to the little room that'd been his home for so long now, with its still-broken mirror, and two captures of her beside his bed, and walls that screamed at him of all the thoughts he'd ever had of her.

He'd had two years to learn her, two years he'd wasted. But it was foolish to chide himself. Not enough time left for regret.

So he started new: began to learn her that night (languidly), and to let her learn him. Gave her everything that he had, everything he was; and maybe, just maybe, she did the same.

Reckoned he'd keep doing just that until he couldn't anymore. Until his time was up.

And he loved her.

* * *

Between all the new moments of joy, he still watched her dying. Slower this time, but dying nonetheless. He prayed every day that she wouldn't.

* * *

Unrest in the Core: political protests (turned violent) stretching from Sun to Sun; resulting crackdowns throughout the 'Verse; martial law in parts unexpected. He became accustomed to coming to the bridge at night only to find Simon trying, mostly in vain, to wave his father, or scanning the Cortex for news. Meaning to do right by his children, he reckoned, Gabriel Tam had decided to speak the truth at long last.

One night, on the bridge next to him, watching the black as the boy sat entranced by the screen in front of him. Seeing the drop of his shoulders, the sudden pallor in his cheeks, Mal didn't have to ask what the news was. It was seven months after their return from Ariel.

When he told her, she didn't cry.

* * *

She'd told him once that time was a thief. Truest of truths: a year gone by in a blink. Each of his moments with her he tried desperately to hold onto, but still they slipped through his fingers like the sands of Beylix.

The dead of night, sitting beside Simon outside the infirmary. The boy reached his arms over his head; stretched back into that yellow sofa. Then, leaning forward, he scrubbed his hands over his face. "You know, you don't have to sit here with me. I'll let you know as soon the tests are finished."

He shrugged. "I can tell you right now, sitting here listening to your stories beats the hell out of tossing and turning in my bunk." (That image recounted of ringlets and cloisonné clips still played through his mind, too stubborn by far to disappear. He reckoned it never would.)

The doctor took a deep breath. When he spoke, his voice was soft. "Mal, you know that I want nothing more in the world than to be able to give you good news."

He closed his eyes; nodded. "I know. And _you_ know, no matter how it turns out, I can't ever thank you enough for trying. It means — Christ, it means everything."

The boy stood up; stretched the stiffness out of his shoulders. "I can't take much credit, regardless. It was River, mostly. Her ideas, her research, her experiments. It's been — just miraculous, to see her so focused, and alert, and attuned —" He drifted off, looking for all the world like he was at a loss for words (probably a first for him, Mal reckoned). Shook his head. "So _present_. It's been so good for her."

He nodded. "Fair enough. But you're the one's made her imaginings reality. Just want you to know I won't ever forget it."

A half-smile on the boy'd lips: "We'll see."

From the infirmary, the sound of silence, sudden, as the soft hum of the centrifuge cut out, and then a low beep. He stood, but couldn't make himself follow the boy — just watched, frozen, his eyes wide, as Simon walked into the infirmary, donned gloves, and prepared a sample from the test tube that he'd had spinning.

He watched as the boy held a small wand over the sample (and, Jesus, he could hardly even grasp what that _was_, _might_ be) — then closed his eyes, took a deep breath, opened them, and studied the projected image in front of him.

Seconds ticking by too slow as the boy moved the wand a touch, then again, looking back and forth at what surely must've been the same gorram view, over and over, and why in God's name couldn't he just stop looking and tell him what it was he saw?

He thought maybe he hadn't been breathing, because when the boy turned his head toward him, _smiling_, and nodded, the breath that filled his lungs burned, but burned good. So good.

"Mal?" Her voice from the edge of the room, but it filled the space around him, controlled him, and in two long steps he was standing in front of her, his eyes closed, his forehead and nose against hers, one hand on the back of her neck, the other on her stomach. Her voice, soft, tinged with sleep. "I woke up, and you were gone."

Wanted to say something, to tell her, but all he could manage was a satisfied hum.

She pulled her head back, and he opened his eyes to find her looking at him, her eyes hopeful. Just a whisper: "Mal?" Still, words were too much for him: all he could do was nod, a tired grin on his face, and hold her.

She must've caught sight of the doctor over his shoulder, because the next thing she said wasn't to him. "Simon? Is it true?"

He looked back; saw the doctor nod. "It's true. I'll run it again. I can run it ten times, a hundred times, if you want. As many times as you need. But I... I think it worked."

Then her eyes were gleaming, and she was blinking fast, tears on her cheeks, but smiling, smiling. A hand on her belly, beside his, and she was whispering: "Do you hear that, baby? You're whole. No sorrow for you. Just joy."

Wasn't full true, that there, at least not for him. The tears on his cheeks had some sorrow to them. But it was true enough: the taste of them was _more_ joy than sorrow, because for maybe the first time he could begin to imagine a future even if she wasn't there. And so he nodded, his forehead back down against hers. "Joy."

Just a breath: "Joy."

She linked her fingers through his, and was pulling him back, toward their bunk, when he felt the doctor's hand on his arm. "Mal. Could you stay for a second?"

She looked back and forth between them, a question in her eyes. He cleared his throat. "Go ahead. I'll be there."

Her eyes, on his, and she was trying to read him. Then she nodded, took one step away, letting his fingers slip out of hers. "Don't be too long."

He watched until she'd faded into Serenity's night shadows. When she was gone, the boy: "I've been wanting to talk to you about something. Something that's been on my mind."

Not waiting for an answer, the boy turned, walked into the infirmary. Mal followed him. "So talk."

When he turned back toward him, he was holding a data reader. "I received this a few weeks ago. He must've sent it to me just before he died."

He closed his eyes; squeezed the bridge of his nose between his fingers as he absorbed what it was the boy was saying to him. "So why are you just showing it to me now?"

A beat. "I needed some time to think." Not an explanation, not really, but it would have to do. He pushed the screen toward Mal. "And now I want _you _to go through it, and I want _you_ to think. I haven't made a decision yet. But — Mal — you know me. You know I don't find it very easy to let go."

His eyes hurt. His head hurt. Too much, too soon (the high and low and in between). He looked at the boy's outstretched hand. "Simon —"

"Just look. _Please_."

A beat. "I expect you don't want me to tell her."

He shook his head. "No. Not yet."

A deep sigh, and then his hand was around the edge of the reader, both of them holding onto it for a second before Simon nodded, let go. "You'll do it?"

He ran one finger along a sharp edge; studied the gleam of reflected lights on the glass. He nodded, and when he spoke, his words came slow. "I'll do it. How could I not? It'll give me something to think on. Sometimes a man needs something to think on, don't you think?"


End file.
